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How to Get Ahead in Life and Exit the “Rat Race”

How to Get Ahead in Life and Exit the “Rat Race”

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. — Winston Churchill

Building a Better Life

Getting ahead in life may mean many different things to many different people. However, thanks to the global personification from mainstream media, the general consensus of getting ahead in life relates to monetary gains. We see the portrayal of the “American Dream” everywhere we turn – from radio, to television, and, of course, on the Web. There are constant accounts of immigrants crafting a better life for themselves and achieving financial freedom.
But this dream doesn’t just apply to America; this is a global dream. It’s the dream to have a better life, not only financially speaking, but overall in every aspect. And, the reasoning is that, once you have money, everything else will fall into place. Who could possibly have problems when they have an exorbitant amount of cash, right? Who could think that life was anything but a beautiful gift when they could wake up and spend what they wanted, where they wanted, and with whom they wanted, right?
Well, not necessarily. 
But I’m not here to bash “the dream.” What I want to do is put some perspective to the dream. Because, although getting ahead in life, monetarily speaking, is great, it’s not everything. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely no issues with having a lot of money, but without first possessing some financial traits and following a basic set of rules that are fundamentally necessary at the foundational core of any successful person, more money just means more problems.

Happily Succeeding

Money might make the world go round, but it certainly doesn’t equal happiness. If you’re equating having more money to being more happy, then you’re trying to succeed in order to be happy, and not happily succeeding. And there’s a big difference. Primarily speaking, when money is looked at as a source of happiness, rarely is a person ever truly happy.
Now, this goes into a much bigger discussion about happiness levels pitted against income. But, what you might find interesting is that, across the globe, studies have found that more money doesn’t equal more happiness. As people make more money, they tend to accumulate more things, and their spending catches up with their earning. They’re on the Hedonic Treadmill, so to speak.

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