I am quite surprised when you said you were not an entrepreneur and want a normal wage, financial stability, but at the same time have no interest in a rat race. Maybe our definitions of rat race are different:)
Oh no I don't consider my job a rat race at all. I live in Europe so we have a lot of safeguards against getting fired.
My job is kinda boring and it's not too challenging. I probably can do my weekly work in one day a week so I'm far from stressed. I also don't have any ambition for a higher-level job because this one pays enough to get by. I work in IT (in house) as architect. My yearly reviews are still above average. So I'm pretty good :)
You can still take pride in the quality of work without being competitive or ambitious
Where I live, the culture has lost that sense of pride and it’s awful. Things are expensive and the quality of service/product I get in return is awful.
My point being, competition and ambition aren’t correlated to the quality of work delivered.
Personally, I feel more like I'm a monkey in a circus than in a rat race. I'll dance for the music when we're in the big tent, but the show stops for me when the tent is pulled down for the day.
My job is kinda boring and it's not too challenging. I probably can do my weekly work in one day a week so I'm far from stressed. I also don't have any ambition for a higher-level job because this one pays enough to get by. I work in IT (in house) as architect. My yearly reviews are still above average. So I'm pretty good :)