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Gordon Robinson | Confessions Of A Rat

People keep asking me ‘how’ and ‘why’. Why give it all up? Why live for the last 20 years in relative obscurity? Why share a 13-year-old car with the Old Ball and Chain? Just get a bank ‘borrows’ and own a criss CR-V! To that last, I remind them bank loans must be repaid.

Very few of my professional colleagues (those closest to me personally; some followed in my footsteps) understand why I walked away from what seemed like professional utopia after 1997. Then, as a senior partner of a leading law firm for 15 years, I had a pretty good reputation as a civil advocate but also as an administrator (in public and private sectors), led a litigation department team that was second to none, and introduced many innovations into how law was then practised that streamlined and increased production. I was the poster boy for what most would call ‘success’.

Then, on December 31, 1997, I called it a day and have rarely left my home since. I do putter around the law still, but as senior counsel only on projects I find attractive when instructed by one of the instructing attorneys still alive (number dwindling daily) who understand my idio(t)syncracies and quirky operating systems. I have no office, no staff, no listed telephone number. Many months pass with me earning zero income. Yet, I’ve never been happier or healthier. Fat? Yes. Ugly? Hell, yes. But no doctor has built a big house with my cash.

Then, on December 31, 1997, I called it a day and have rarely left my home since. I do putter around the law still, but as senior counsel only on projects I find attractive when instructed by one of the instructing attorneys still alive (number dwindling daily) who understand my idio(t)syncracies and quirky operating systems. I have no office, no staff, no listed telephone number. Many months pass with me earning zero income. Yet, I’ve never been happier or healthier. Fat? Yes. Ugly? Hell, yes. But no doctor has built a big house with my cash.

Why and how’d I do it? I had two reasons, one method. Reason One: I was sick and tired of the rat race. It’s dehumanising and demeaning. I realised that, spiritually, even when you win that race, it still means you’re a rat. Uh! Ya too rude! Uh! Eh! Oh, what a rat race! Oh, what a rat race! Oh, what a rat race! Oh, what a rat race! This is the rat race! Rat race! (Rat race!)

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