The Golden Rat Trap - Staying in the Rat Race

Consider, for example, a recent CEO of Home Depot, who departed with a severance package of about $210 million. Or a Merrill Lynch CEO who pocketed $160 million as his golden parachute (after losing the company $8 billion). Not bad!

The golden parachute epitomizes a paradox - a CEO runs a company into the ground (bad), and yet leaves with way more money than makes sense by most measures (good - at least for him).

The golden rat trap is a similar paradox -

• We have to spend about 10 hours a day rat racing it
• Battling office politics,
• Doing work that we may or may not be passionate about,
• Spending almost half of our day, and most of our hours awake, with co-workers rather than family,
  (all this is the bad..)

In exchange, we get paid to maintain a certain lifestyle. House, car, and "stuff". As we get promoted up the rat race ladder, we buy bigger cars, bigger houses, and more stuff.

And at the end of it all, we hope that we have amassed enough stuff for our kids to inherit. So that they can have a head start on the collection of stuff

Sure, it's a rat trap, but at least it's golden! :)

This often starts way before graduation - it starts back when you're selecting classes to take. With an education system that steers kids towards the "hot" careers of the moment, very little emphasis is placed on helping kids find out what they are passionate about, and then presenting them with career alternatives that allow them to grow within their area of interest

We carry the weight of expectations not only into our career choices, but even into our other major life choices as well. There are a few excellent books on this topic by Barbara Sher, one noteworthy title being "I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was." Many of us realize we aren't pursuing our fullest life later in life, and change course. Probably a greater number still never come to this realization at all. Or if they do, they bury the discovery and continue to "endure" their current existence. Expectations prolong our resistance to change. "What would people think?" I know from first-hand experience. It doesn't pay to live to please others.

Net - if what you want to do isn't a typical 9-to-5 job, take heart. Go out and learn about yourself. Find out where your passion is. And boldly dump the prestige of the 9-to-5 job. You've only one life to live...

Typical retirement plans in the U.S.A. include:

• Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) (you can invest up to about $5,000 a year, pre-tax), and
• 401(k) plans (you can invest up to about $15,500 a year).
• Roth 401(k) plans (you can save taxed income and withdraw earnings tax-free)
• Roth IRAs (you can save taxed income and withdraw earnings tax-free)

Here's a good article on retirement plans, on bankrate.com.

Many corporations provide matching funds up to a certain point... making it beneficial for employees to join their company's retirement pan. I fully encourage this.

It is good, sound planning to save and invest for the future. However, I caution against feeling tied to corporate employment justs so you don't miss out on these matching funds. I'm not a financial planner, so I can't give financial advice. I would simply ask you to consider that retirement plans can be set up even outside corporate employers. And, setting up various passive income streams (outside of corporate employment) can provide you with a more robust income well into your retirement years.

Ultimately though, this on its own should not be the single reason that keeps you tied to a corporate employment, if that job is not your true calling. Time waits for no one - you can't afford to take your time about pursuing what matters most to you. Time isn't guaranteed for any of us.