TLDR:
- Moving out has allowed me to:
- Rediscover and taking ownership of my wellbeing and creativity
- Been an important bulwark against ennui
- Recognise (more accurately) my finanncial and quality of life needs
March 2021, a young man with a metabolic age ten years younger than his actual age (thanks boditrax), finally took action that has been weighing on his mind for years…
I, after much deliberation, moved out. Perhaps it is not the place here to articulate fully on why I wanted to. Suffice to say - and I don’t think it is unusual - there is just this “thing” when young adults who have lived abroad return to live with their parents. Perhaps it was the nostalgia of a time that was less complex (just study, graduate, get a job), more exciting (can do whatever you want) and for the first time, escaped from the influence of figures of authority. I could have affixed blame to living with my parents as a the reason preventing me from reliving those moments, when in actuality, life has changed and its time to move on.
There was also a niggling pressure (influenced by perceived social norms) as I approached the ripe old age of 30 as well. That said, I am a member of a generation that is finding it increasingly hard to do so.
But, as I would like to study in another post - life (and business) is about having to constantly pivot and change, to minimise the perceived angst and frictions around us. This was yet another exercise in flexing the adaptability muscle for a new situation and environment.
I’ve had the financial capacity to move out at an earlier time for some time, but had opted to hold off on it due to several reasons:
- It was impossible to justify moving out too far when my living location was so convenient to get to work.
- I pondered whether I owed my family anything by staying - (i.e. some bastardised view of filial piety - which I am not naturally inclined towards)
- Something about hoarding cash and saving when we’re young and able.
Since changing jobs and hence work location, and perhaps due to a COVID induced lockdown - there was finally an impetus to do so.
This post pens down some thoughts roughly bucketed in four themes of observations.
Rediscovering and taking ownership of my wellbeing and creativity
Paraphrasing, I think there’s something precious and valuable about an increased ownership. This includes the problems I create and fix, as well as over what I eat!
I find great joy in cooking, as (weakly) demonstrated in my projects post on this site. Ownership of a kitchen and fridge is incredibly important to me - and something that I cannot live without. It is a creative outlet too, trained from the everlasting war against expiring foods. Mixing and matching various cuisines and preventing food waste is creatively challenging as it is fun.
On a related note, taking ownership of cooking also serves as a reminder to eat healthily in the absence of someone else who is constantly thinking about what to feed you every day. It is different - when you cook the greens yourself. This points towards a more serious point on taking an increased responsibility for my own needs (including general well being).
Amidst a low at my previous job, I had at some point wondered whether taking greater ownership in life also increased my capacity for initiative and problem solving in a workplace. Put in another way, I wondered whether my lack of ownership in my day-to-day living, has led to a general passiveness in my attitude and approach to things (including work). That said, it is a little difficult to draw the connection since my job changed as well - I am put in a position of leadership and initiative which I can’t really escape from. These are purely anecdotal, and are just musings, if anything.
A bulwark against ennui
Kinda related above, but also getting a bit deeper into the emotional side of things - I think modern life has made it easy to fall into bouts of negativity. The drudgery of it all, disillusionment etc has been explored widely as a theme. Certainly so, when your basic needs are easily met, and possibility making it harder to eke out the willpower for progress. Conceptually its not too far from what I had written about survivalism in the past. This focus on meeting one’s needs is healthy and productive.
So on moving out - time spent wallowing unproductively as I had done in the past has instead been channeled cleaning, organising and along with other daily affairs such as cooking (<3), grocery runs (aka supermarket tourism) and laundry. It is the simple, yet critical tasks that are a good driver of routine and useful to stave off feelings of ennui. Frankly, somethings just gotta get done - more so when its important for your own personal wellbeing.
Recognising my financial and quality of life needs
Above all, it has been a good reminder and sense-check to learn more about myself too.
I now have a far more “accurate” estimation of my actual cost of living. This in turn is a good motivator or calibrator to give me a sense of what to do from a money-earning perspecive. Can I live on less? Can I rebalance to earn less which will enable me to do something different for my living? How much should I be saving?
Similarly, living with someone who doesn’t clean the house ever week also allowed me to do a better estimation on my tolerance for cleanliness and need for organisation. Things like taking out the trash and wiping down tables has been super important to preventing bugs flying around. I am aware that others can live with different levels of cleanliness, but it was good to understand my own tolerance too. I am cognisant too of my sensitivities to dust (although this has much improved from childhood) - and is good to know the effort required (frequency/ intensity) to clean in order to manage my own health too.
Diversity in Public Compounds
This wouldnt apply to everyone.
But for me, having lived for most of my life on private properties (again, ever cognisant to the privilege it entails), it was just as important to become familiarised with a different environment that is very much the culture of the country I live in. Public housing in Singapore is of a good quality and in my view, far more diverse. From young kids frolicking to pensive retirees; from the disabled wheeling shopping back and forth to Maseratis - all are present in the same compound. There’s more culture, more life here. The mood, the tone - it is the oft quoted “kampong spirit” that is foreign to a banana such as myself, that I have now managed to catch a glimpse of.
Noting this - I’ve felt that the compounds of the wealthy are less diverse in nature. It makes me question whether there is a strong of conformism amongst the rich and elite. To elaborate, would it be true that irrespective of race, culture, background - generally, the better off (and similarly expatriate circles) might be have far more in common than their less economically inclined counterparts. Likely to be a proponent of globalisation, commenting on the megatrends and government, enjoying food and luxury, quipping about the stock market…
This is probably worth another post in the future as I am a general believer that the greatest divide is not across race, gender, etc, but of economic inequality. But I digress…
Verdict
All in all, moving out (again) in my twenties has been a general positive development. The cons are not really explored to be fair - but what you lose is really circumstantial based on one’s own current living situation with their parents. I’d advise - within financial means - for others to do it too. Yet, this is a situation that more and more in my generation are finding ourselves in, as property prices spiral skywards making this decision ever more important to consider and reflect on.