I've been hearing a lot about this topic.
- On NPR recently, there was a series of reports about people who have quit high-paying jobs and moved to small towns for jobs that paid, in some instances, a fifth of their prior salaries.
- I read a story recently about some people buying up old schools and converting them into home factories. One couple used the first grade as their bedroom, 4th grade as an office, and revelled in the 20-nozzle shower they shared.
My wife and I have been attempting to engineer a move into the country - me taking a telecommute job with a satellite broadband connection. She wants 5 acres and an old country farmhouse. As far as we can tell, we'll be able to do it in 3 years.
Then again, one of my fondest wishes is to retreat to a monastery for a year, just to see what silence would be like.
How does the "rat-race" affect you? What reactions are you having? What dreams do you wish you could fulfill today, but put off because you have to go to work and pay the mortgage?
Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.