The Rat Race

The alarm goes off at 7.00am in the morning. With eyes half opened, you stumble across the room to find the door knob to the bathroom. You grab hold of the toothbrush and toothpaste and you are lucky if you squeeze the toothpaste onto your toothbrush and not the hair gel from the tube lying next to the toothpaste. You wash up and change into your working clothes, grab a cup of coffee, and off you go in your car to reach the office before the clock in time. And while on the road, you are caught in a bad traffic jam just like any other day and you start to curse and swear. Why can’t everybody leave home earlier so that you can have all the road to yourself and you can have an easy cruise to your office. But you know that it is not possible and the only way to avoid the traffic is to leave your home earlier and not everybody else. But then again to wake up earlier is a like dragging an elephant weighing a ton out of the bed. It is quite an impossible task.

Reaching the office, you drive into the car park but there is no parking lot nearby your office because all the convenient parking lots have been taken up by those early birds. You have to park a distance away and walk to your office. You look at your watch and notice that you only have a minute before your punch card indicates that you are late for work again. You rush and by the time you clock in, you are all sweaty and wet. And yet you are one minute late for work. All the effort and the rushing are a waste and you start cursing again because now you feel uncomfortable and sticky. If you have known that you can’t make it in time, you would not have rushed and take a slow walk to the office.

At your work station, you put your briefcase on your desk, sit down and notice that the pile of paper in the in tray staring back at you. You know that it is going to be another struggle, a big battle between you and the work that need to be done. You would like to make peace for the day but still you know that you have no choice and the job need to be done. You surrender and thought that you need another cup of coffee to get you through the day.

By lunch time, half of your energy is gone. You feel that the time is passing on so slowly. You are looking forward to the lunch break but on the other hand, you are fed up because you do not know what to eat for lunch. Day in day out you the stall serves the same food of which you already know how they taste like even before you eat them. You gulp in the food like Garfield does and not enjoying any bit at all. It is just like another lunch routine that you have to go through.

Back to work and how you wish you can sleep for a while. The lunch, even though not satisfying make you feel sleepy. You steal a wink or two every now and then when nobody notices. How you wish that you can sleep with your eyes open. Well, that is a skill to yet to be mastered.

You look at the clock and realize that it is about time to clock out and heading back home. Even though you are all drained out, energy seems to seep back in and you find yourself full of energy again. But it did not last long. The moment you get into your car and drive out of the car park into the road, you are caught in another bad traffic jam. It is the after office hour rush.

By the time you reach home, it is already late and way passed your dinner time. Your energy level is back to zero level again. You lie down on your favourite sofa to unwind and de-stress. But knowing that you have to go through the same routine again tomorrow morning, you get all stressed out even before the morning sun rises. There is no way for you to unwind and the stress level keep building up. Your health is slowly and surely affected by this daily routine.

Is this scenario familiar to you? Why are we all going through this routine when it is actually adversely affecting our health? Is all this a chasing after the wind? Are we in a rat race where there is no winner?