Why You Will Never Be Rich (And It Is Not Your Fault)

I have to say this with a heavy heart, but it is the absolute truth. 99% of you will never become rich. And it is not your fault. The fault lies with the system that all of us are a part of.

Let me walk you through how this system works.

The rat race you never signed up for

It starts in school. Wear the uniform. Tie your shoes properly. Fix your tie. Button up. Get your hair in order. Get good marks. Then 10th grade arrives and suddenly you have to choose: science, commerce, or humanities. Take science so you can become an engineer. Need minimum marks for science. Do not have enough marks? Parents will pay a donation. No arts. No humanities. Just science.

Then comes 11th and 12th. Now prepare for entrance exams. IIT. SRCC. School studies alone will not be enough, so take extra tuitions. One tuition for CBSE. Another coaching for IIT. And there is an entrance exam just to get into the coaching institute. Your entire life revolves around studying, exams, and more studying. But this is just the beginning.

Phase two: college. The same worn out things are taught again. Physics, chemistry, math. Maintain attendance. Write exams every month. Give final exams. Keep paying lakhs in fees every year. And after all of that, now you need a placement. So prepare again. Give interviews. Put pressure on yourself. Destroy your mental peace. But wait, it still does not end.

Phase three: career. You got placed. Walk into a company. Become part of the same herd, the same rat race, where thousands of people just like you are working. Your boss puts pressure on you. Meet deadlines. Work-life balance is destroyed. Go home, come back, repeat. Take the boss's scolding. Wait for appraisals. Switch jobs. Meet new people. Deal with office politics. Repeat.

Phase four: marriage. You are approaching 30. Time to find someone. Get married. Have a nice wedding. Then comes the pressure for kids. Kid arrives. Now the expenses multiply. But wait, you also need a nice car. A good house. Good clothes. Because success means looking rich. Right?

And now you cannot leave your job. Monthly expenses are locked in. If you quit and try business, the risk is too high. How will you run the house? How will you pay for your child's education? How will you fund their wedding? So you stay. You plan for retirement instead. Save up, put money away, dream about 1 crore in the bank at 60.

But here is what nobody tells you. The 1 crore that feels like a lot today will be worth maybe 25 lakh in purchasing power 30 years from now. You will end up dependent on your children, sitting in parks, gossiping, passing time, waiting for the end.

This is how a typical life looks. Not just in India. All around the world.

Who built this system and why

Have you ever asked yourself why? Why are we told to walk this traditional path? Who designed this system?

I will tell you.

In the 1800s, there was a country called Prussia. They had the largest army in the world, but there was a problem. The army was not under their control. The soldiers were doing whatever they wanted. So the leaders sat together and figured out a solution: create an education system. A system designed to make people obedient. Train them for the workforce. Make them follow orders.

Other countries saw this and thought it was brilliant. If we can control people through education, we can control them in our factories, in our industries, everywhere. The British took this exact model and brought it to India. Learn English. Follow the rules. Wear the uniform. Say good morning. Fix your hair. Come on time. Listen to the boss.

This is what the education system trains us to do for 18 years of our lives. And it does not stop there. After school and college, advertising, marketing, and social messaging keep pushing us to take loans, buy things we do not need, show off, live a flashy life that drains every rupee we earn.

The system wants us to keep running the rat race. Keep paying taxes. Keep working for the people at the top. Keep buying from them. So they always stay at the top.

That is the system. That is the rat race. And it is designed for you to never escape.

The question you need to ask yourself

Do you want to keep running like a rat? Or do you want to break out like a lion?

If you want to be the lion, here is what you need to do. It is simpler than you think. You need to start questioning everything at every phase and every stage of your life. Breaking out of the rat race requires mental reprogramming, and you need to do it on three levels.

Level 1: Making money

If you just want to earn money, go do a job. But if you want to be wealthy, if you want time freedom, location freedom, financial freedom, and peace of mind, you have to build a business.

Look around you. The richest people in your world, are they doing jobs? Go talk to people. Most people living great lives with real wealth, who travel freely and are financially independent, they are self-employed.

The system keeps telling you the only way to make money is through jobs, entrance exams, placements, IIMs, IITs, MBAs. Stop listening. There are hundreds of other ways to make money.

One very simple way that I keep talking about is building an internet business. And this business can be anything. Learn a skill and start freelancing. Start offering services. Start dropshipping. If you do not have money to invest, there are still so many internet businesses you can start from zero. Even offline businesses work. I keep pushing internet businesses because you can build one from your home, from your laptop, and start earning.

My own story is exactly this. I was part of the rat race. School, financial problems in the family, an engineer cousin who was my idol. So naturally, the plan was: study hard, get into engineering, get placed, live a good life. I got into one of the best engineering colleges in Delhi. But when I actually saw how the placement process worked, how companies came and took hundreds of people to do the same repetitive work for 15 to 25 thousand rupees a month, I knew this was not the life I wanted.

So I started doing internships. Learned about marketing, sales. Took courses and programs on building internet businesses. Kept trying, kept building, because I was sure of one thing: I want to stay with my family, I want time, and I want to earn a lot of money. So I will not walk the traditional path.

I would highly encourage you to do the same, no matter what phase of life you are in right now.

Level 2: Managing money

Who told you that being successful means looking successful? Who said success means wearing Gucci, expensive watches, driving a fancy car, buying a big house, throwing a lavish wedding?

The most foolish people are the ones who do not have money but take loans to show off. They take loans for dowry, spend wastefully on weddings, buy things they cannot afford. Who are you showing this to? Nobody cares about you. Stop living in a fake world.

Be real. Ask yourself: how can I live simply and do what actually matters? Save your money. Invest what you earn. Move toward a stage where your money makes money for you. Where your investments generate enough income that you can live comfortably without working. That is real retirement. And you do not have to wait until 60 to achieve it.

I have friends who retired at 21, 22. You need to invest wisely in mutual funds, stocks, digital currencies, whatever makes sense after studying it properly. Start small if you have to. But start now. Because if you do not start, you will never know how to get where you want to go.

Save it. Invest it. Stop bothering about showing off your money to people and getting validation from those around you. You do not need any of that. If you want to be rich, be rich for yourself and your family. Let the rest of the world go to hell.

Level 3: Managing life

Money is not everything. Jobs and business are not everything. If your health is destroyed, no amount of money will save you. That needs no explanation.

And if your relationships are broken, if things with your family, your spouse, your siblings are damaged, what good is being a crorepati? We see stories all the time of billionaires getting divorced, taking their own lives. Most billionaires end up divorced. I am not saying do not aim for billions. I am saying money alone is not the solution to a good life.

Your priorities should be your health, your relationships, and your peace of mind. Always. Solve your money problem first, get to a stage where you know how to earn. But from that very moment, do not wait to become a crorepati before focusing on health and peace of mind. Start reverse engineering the life you want right now.

That is how you break out of the rat race. Be a lion. Question everything the system tells you. Reprogram your thinking on three levels: how you make money, how you manage money, and how you manage life.

Many people have already done it. They questioned whether the path the system laid out was the only way. They realized it was not. And they built their own path.

You can do the same.