I very much needed to hear this. I was brought up believing living simple lifestyle is the best form of happiness. Growing up I deviated from what was taught and I believed everything I saw is real. While I travelled in public transport, my friends used their privately owned vehicles for local travelling. I felt bad at the time wishing if I had owned a vehicle, I will be happy. Since everyone had it, I thought or assumed they were happy, and I was unhappy. Little did I know it’s the other way around.
You see, back when I was in college, I asked my parents to gift me a vehicle. They wanted to but reluctant at the time because we weren’t financially doing great. We lived a bare minimum lifestyle as long as we had a roof above our heads and food on the table, we were good to go.
After getting into corporate, I hated waiting for the bus because of time delays. I decided to save up money to buy a vehicle for myself. But I wasn’t earning well enough to afford what I wanted. My salary barely met my needs. This went on quite some time and I forgot about owning a vehicle. Years passed, I began enjoying travelling in buses, metros and hopping on friends’ bikes. I enjoyed being a pillion. I stopped cribbing. I began to appreciate little things to enjoy life as it came to me.
There’s this type of enjoyment I get for not owing a vehicle. For example — I do not worry about parking problems, I do not worry about petrol prices going high, I do not have to worry of services or maintenance issue, I do not have to worry about my vehicle getting towed and most importantly I do not have to pay EMI’s. I saved lot of money because of this simple lifestyle.
To be fair, sometimes I did think how different my life would be if I had one. I weighed out the pros and cons of it by asking all my friends to describe their experience. Each had their opinions. If you are a family man or woman with children, for sure you need a car. When asked about the financial aspect most said they are still paying EMI’s and some of them are facing debt because of this and various other reasons. Given their family size and requirement owning a vehicle is a necessity for them.
I completely empathize and understand that lifestyle is not same for everyone but what I cannot take is when people criticize my choice of living. Despite explaining through my careful evaluation why I chose public transport, people made it sound like I’m living a life with defect. While this is how they saw, I perceived myself living a carefree life. Is this not most of us are striving for? Trying to live a carefree or stress-free life? Most people go high ends spending money on therapy or medication to reduce stress while here I am carefully evaluating my choices to live better on a budget. Like I said earlier, lifestyle is not same for everyone. To each unto their own.
In a world full of people with their pollution causing vehicles and its problems they are shocked to find that I do not conform to world’s standardized living. These people tried to persuade me to buy one as if it’s given for free. I strongly stood to my ground saying it’s not necessary ‘for me’ and not my priority anymore.
Observing their life choices, why should I suffer like them when I choose to live a budget friendly life. Owning one will only put me in debt and make it more difficult for me. Sometimes I feel these types of people project their insecurities onto me while I am simply minding my business.
I advocate simple and mindful living. I am not in dire need to go after what most people have. Life is good as it should be. Most people will not understand when they see someone who is perfectly happy living on budget because according to them, such lifestyle is too good to be true and they clearly cannot not attain such living.
My sincere advice to the one who is reading — before spending your money, always ask yourself if you are buying because you want it or do you need it. If you know the difference between these two, you are wise enough to make a decision. If not, do some research.
Lesson learnt: Evaluate choices carefully. Choose simple, live mindful.