I saw this earlier and it really resonated. Alongside a spiralling cost of living, I’ve seen a pernicious uptake on social media , of a kind of ‘workhouse virtue signalling’, reminiscent of a Victorian era. When times get hard, the poor are gaslighted in working even harder, not even by the rich, but often by those struggling themselves. In 2025 Britain, the demographic of ‘the poor’ has now significantly widened to include the working and middle classes. You now need two significant incomes to buy a house, pay a mortgage and cover the basics, where as just 30 years ago, a single average income was enough, to buy a house, pay the bills, bring up kids and still have money leftover to do the fun stuff.

‘But I have a dream to retire early from the 9-5 grind and do something more fulfilling!’… ‘Sorry, old chum, the rich need more investment properties and I need my 2 weeks in Greece next year…keep rowing!!’

I’ve seen this coming for a long time and I took evasive action. I simply wasn’t prepared to spend a lifetime toiling at something I didn’t believe in, just to fulfil someone else’s warped sense of success. 16 years ago I bailed out…I left the rat race, put everything I’d made into paying off the mortgage and made a steadfast resolution that from now I’d only work at something that personally fulfilled me. Like Ade outlined, I’d realised that people should be working less, not more and having more diverse and fulfilled lives. What progress have we made as a species if we now work harder at things we don’t want to do?

The road wasn’t always easy and I’ve had to give up on the dream on some occasions having been overwhelmed by cost of living pressures, but I’m still here 16 years later… With a few exceptions I largely kept to my promise… There is simply more to life than living someone else’s dream..As Ade says, don’t grind away until you die, cultivate your own dream, make it happen.