“I don’t think I will be able to go back to a home without a pool”… I told Jainee, sitting from the patio of our rented home overlooking the pool of our condo in Singapore…
My younger brother always used to tell me that there is a pleasure of lifestyle living but it never appealled to me before… Guess based on where I came from in India, I always felt it was vain and other things are more important in life… But like most things in life, experience brings a realisation that no rational thought can…
Anyways…
Jainee works these days with a clothes rental company where you can rent designer or expensive clothes and accessories… And I was telling Jainee as to why don’t they expand in Hong Kong… For a few weeks back my boss who is based in Hong Kong was telling me how big high end luxury goods culture is in Hong Kong… It is so prevalent that if you are one of the locals then it’s a norm that you have to spend on such goods no matter if you are a secretary or a managing director! Imagine what happens when they will get access to renting such things at a fraction of the cost… they will go even more crazy and it will be a big market…
You know what relates both of the above… The fact that renting makes comforts, goods, pleasures… Whatever triggers happiness… Accessible cheaply… And makes the person habituated to that new level of materialism that is being paid for only for that moment…
The concern is ‘paid only for that moment’ and ‘habituated’ in the same sentence… Its like any other addiction… Unsustainable and harmful…
Sustaineance is the key issue…
A couple of weeks back I interviewed someone who is my father’s age for a mid level manager position in my team… He had been a senior vice President in a global bank before in Singapore but was laid off due to restructuring… I was quite intrigued as to why he wanted to work for such a junior position at this age – my dad gave up active practice a few years ago and is semi retired… What drives this gentleman to this desperation at this age?
When I met him, he shared that he still needs to work as his younger daughter is in London studying for the next 4 years… He was offered a job in India, but with an Indian salary he wouldn’t be able to sustain the expense of the foreign course his daughter was into… So he needed the Singaporean salary just for that 4 years before he goes back to India and retires…
It was a rude shock… I saw what I have placed myself into… He was tied for 4 years only now to this desperation… I was for the next 20…
Since we could, we have sent our kids in international schools in Singapore… But that means they are setup for foreign education for the rest of their academic life… And what I sustain today, I will need to for next 2 decades… My kids didn’t ask for the school… But hell they will complain a few years later if they have to change…
Jainee who is in Mumbai right now, tells me that she doesn’t enjoy the city anymore… She is fine visiting but she can’t live in the traffic… She is used to the structured predictability and comforts and convenience of Singapore… I don’t blame her… I feel the same…
The core predicament is all this… The country, the home, the education to the kids… All of it is borrowed and paid for momentarily… There is a freaking strong dependence on earning the same amount for next 2 decades to sustain this life… And jobs are unpredictable…
What happens when people get used to just not homes, education, cars… But even basic things like clothes… And on a personal side, with advent of social media – friends… Who are momentary and not that permanent…
Alvin Toffler saw the trend a long time back & elucidated it in his first book Future Shock… Unbridled consumerism fuelled by temporal capabilities…
Live in the present… And living by the day are different things… But we probably do not understand the difference…
If we had the capability to adapt with acceptable pain in case things change for the worse… It is fine… But as we all know… It’s difficult to climb down when you have experienced the high…
Viktor Frankle in his memoir – Man’s search for meaning, says that a person can survive any how, as long as he has a why for it… i.e. most of us can adapt and will survive… If we have a reason for it… However my issue is… What if the core basis of why we want to live fundamentally is now going to be defined to be for experiencing material happiness… That which never was enjoyed even earlier within our means..
Guess riding the tiger is the only option once you jump over it… Lets enjoy the ride!
Inside VG... 
Worth one
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