Surviving Vs Lifestyle | February's Lesson

When you heard lifestyle, what comes to your mind & associate with?

For the longest of my early 20’s, lifestyle was something I also prioritized. While I am not being excessive, my mindset wasn’t really about surviving but catering to lifestyle. This life included traveling excessively, paying ridiculous amount on food, supplements, as well as just spending money on alcohol. This was such a bad move but because there was an ego play that I want to be seen as independent and living well by my own family, I did all that. Looking back, I never saw it through this lens but today, after not being overly disconnected by my surrounding, I am truly grateful of everything I had achieved and experienced thus far.

Lifestyle has a lot to do with following the trends, the current culture as well as just doing things that pleasing to people’s eye. We want to be seen to act certain ways to be accepted or belong to some type of class. I certainly don’t agree with classism but sadly, our society still operates to that and I am yet disconnected entirely to it. Living based on lifestyle can be quite expensive especially when you compare it to surviving.

Today, I look at the world much differently. I am done with satisfying my ego and my family knows me enough that I can survive pretty well. These days they pretty much don’t care anymore. In retrospect, I think they just want to make sure that once I am out in society, I can survive fairly well.

Damn that was expensive!

In the past, I would have shop at the modern market for the convenient and that people aren’t so noisy and chaotic. There are price to pay for all that extra add-ons where if you can tolerate it and learn how to, they become a lot more enjoyable. Now, whenever I have the urge to shop at the modern market for perhaps ‘ organic’ vegetables, I think twice.

First, over here the wet market is a first hand source. Sometimes people just sell whatever they plant at their house and things that can be found around their house. They certainly don’t use pesticides because a lot of the time, it just grows there and they sell it. The ingredients that are from the market are often freshly plucked. I am overly amazed that even two huge block of tofu costs me $0.32 than if I were to buy from a modern market. With around $2, I was amazed of what I’ve gotten from the market. Just as a picture here is what I got.

• two big sized of tofu
• 1/4 chicken
• 1/4 egg
• a bundle of scallion
• a small bundle of green leaf lettuce

For someone like me, that amount of food would have lasted around 4-5 days. Obviously when adding carbs, condiment, and snacks, it could be somewhere around $7. The thing is, I used to think eating well & nutritious was expensive. I learned my lessons now.

The Cost of Lifestyle

I think a lot of us spent money on food quite excessively. The conveniences around us helped it too because we’re too busy cooking or sometimes too lazy to do so. I was one of those people but now, I think there are far better things I could spend my money on than food. For example, traveling and more investment or the rainy days.

The same goes with fashion, experience as well as transportation. One of my biggest challenge in life was also navigating the crowd. In the past, I wasn’t too fond of the crowd. As someone with traumatic brain injury, crowded place used to make me dizzy this is why I always chose a lot of less crowded spaces and even today, because of habits from my recovery, I formed those habit but overtime, I am combating those and became a lot more comfortable in crowded places again. So, these days instead of taking a car to a short 10 minutes walk, I opt using my feet. It’s also adding a lot more movement to my life which otherwise quite idle and just sits for a long period of time.

In the past, I was also a fan of high-end make up brand. I love dior and make over. They are quite on the high end price and I was buying them just because. After a while, I learned that make up isn’t really about the brand but what actually is comfortable and good for our skin. So these days, I bought make up that I actually like to use and matches my skin and look. They also don’t have to be expensive and even following the trends

Redefining the word "Surviving"

Surviving doesn’t mean that you have to struggle. Surviving means living and enjoying your life. While it has bad rep as it often associated with the in-between of struggling and alive, redefining the way looking at changes the whole meaning and how we approach our life too.

We blame a lot of things on the outer part and a lot of things beyond our control. Meanwhile a lot of things that we can control can be changed and rewired however we like. For instance, we blame social media because it exposes us to what others have that makes us envious or some other negative feeling but focusing on those things will only make us have lesser time focusing on our life and things that truly matters for us. I’ve been there done that and learned my lessons.