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How do I drop out of the rat race and survive? Hippie Communes, Monasteries, Peace Corps? Teaching english to foreigners? Immigrating?
Stay in school, learn everything you can, then become a CEO of a large company and get arrest ~ go to jail and the government will cloth and feed you for 20 years with good behavior.
While I applaud your enthusiasm and desire, I don't know how well you could pull this off - the ChronoTron isn't set up to go back 50 years.
See, Camelot isn't in DC anymore, nor does Nirvana exist in Haight-Ashbury. They don't make VW buses like they used to and pot is way overpriced. Happenings don't happen anymore, and free love turned out to be very expensive indeed.
What you might want to consider is becoming a modern-day homesteader - somehow, get your hands on a few acres somewhere where there are no Wal-Marts and where there are more wild animals than cars. Look for an area where the sky isn't brown and the prevailing language isn't "currency". Learn to raise and grow your own food, build your own buildings and fix damn near anything ever made. If you can't fix it, learn how to build one out of parts you have laying around. Live off the grid - chop wood for your wood stove, collect sun for warm water, recycle and re-use. Get a China Diesel generator. Learn about satellite Internet service.
Maybe make a monthly trip to town and sell your excess produce at the farmer's market, along with the neat craft thingies you spent the winter making.
To me, looking for peace and balance in a foreign country is like looking for love in a whorehouse.
I have known several people (of all ages) who did and are still doing the Peace Corps.
I also know others, one of them my son, who have done the teaching English thing. These choices can be *really* rewarding, as long as you realize that for most people, such an expat lifestyle is temporary. If you do end up in another country, maybe you will want to stay, but you might not want to teach English for the rest of your life. It ends up being yet another rat race, except you have to learn how to operate within the new system. This is fine for some people (it works for my kid), a let-down for others.
Don't know any monks, but I did know a guy, a teacher, who lived off the grid, no electricity, up in the mountains and drove down to the city to work every day. He had a lot of snow days, but we did admire his way of living, and it appeared to be fulfilling for him.
The thing about opting out of the rat race is that IMHO it requires quite a bit of planning and self-discipline.
Another alternative is to keep the day job, but make time for exercise and introspection.
The thing about opting out of the rat race is that IMHO it requires quite a bit of planning and self-discipline.
...but then doesn't that mean that staying IN the rat race requires not much planning and little self-discipline?
Oops, sorry - I just looked out my window at the morning rush-hour and answered my own question.
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just thinking outside the box
