Landisa: How a New Yorker volunteering taught me to tap out of the rat race

This past week transcribing an interview with the incredible David Fu for Landisa, I once again realised that tapping out of a consumer obsessed world is a conscious decision. 

David, who left his high paying job in Wall Street, New York, to come and run a non-profit school in Johannesburg, said he left because he wanted something of meaning. 

"It's mostly like, you know, you just have this feeling like you get up and you're not excited to go to work."

I recall asking him, believing it required bravery, how he was able to tap out of the rat race of a materialistic world. I mean here was David - a Wall Street analyst; "successful" in the eyes of the rat race - deciding against it all. 

"When you're chasing these things, if you don't know who you are, why you're doing it, then you could be chasing anything: I could be chasing more money, you'd be chasing girls, you could be chasing more fame," David said. 

"Like there's any number of external validation metrics or indicators of success that you can chase."

And so the past week, as anxiety about my career and income crept in again, I had to hold on to that truth I discovered walking on the icy streets of Washington DC last December.  

I know I’ve written about this before, but, echoing David’s words, we have to for ourselves decide how we will define success. This is the lesson I learnt in December. 

And if success for you means more money, more cars, and more properties, that is your decision to take. And I respect it, but I question how it will ever give you lasting happiness. 

But for me, success means to leave a room in a better state than what I found it. The Bible describes it as a good fragrance when someone enters a room, and that’s exactly what I would like to achieve. 

To lighten the spirit of those around me: when I enter a room I want people to feel loved and appreciated. 

And I often forget that if this is how I define success, I cannot use the world’s yardstick to measure my success. 

I cannot look at my Instagram feed and be envious of other people’s lives, thinking that my life is lacking. 

Because, defining success in contrast to what it means for the world is a conscious decision. It requires bravery to, like David, reject the rat race and chose to chase something of more meaning. 

It will probably not leave you living in the nicest neighbourhoods, driving the nicest cars, but it will mean that you would’ve left this world a better place. 

Even if it means uplifting just one life for the better, giving one broken human hope for tomorrow or saving another from taking their own life.  

And isn’t that the most we can ask for from life?

To make a lasting impact on the human race, even if just on one other human’s life?

* James is the curator of Landisa, a journalist at Business Insider South Africa, and lives in Johannesburg.