What Everyone Needs is Quality of Life, Not QUANTITY of Life

Right, it’s almost July of 2008 and I have decided that it’s time I set the general populace straight. I have been having impromptu discussions with a few friends regarding the general Malaysian public on their sad, pathetic lives in general. We have basically decided that what the average Malaysian family in Peninsula Malaysia goes along this form of lifestyle that in general makes them into copies of most average families all over Malaysia. The gist of such a life is generally like this:

- Get born (whether by accident or by loving parents)

- Go to School

- Go to College/University

- Find a girlfriend/future wife in College

- Get Engaged to Girlfriend during final year or right after finding a job

– Get a job

– Quickly buy a small Proton or a Perodua

– Marry after a year of work

– Immediately get the wife pregnant with the first child

– Buy an MPV because they think that a single child is so large only an MPV can carry it.

- A child is eventually born

- Make 2nd baby immediately after 1st one pops out

- Find a house in Semenyih, Rawang, Kajang, Sg Buloh, Klang even if they work in KL

- Get tied up in a RM600K housing loan till they are 70 and suffer till then.

- Work till 55 or 60 and get tons of stress

- EPF Money goes to children’s wedding and education

– Die

– Process is continued by children

– Pathetic.

I mean, how can their hopes and dreams of a house be of a house 15km North of Rawang or 1 hour 15minutes from Kuala Lumpur even by Highway during rush hour? Where is the actual quality of life if you have to sleep at 11.00pm, wake up at 5.30am, and leave the house at 6.30am because any later you will be facing the KL morning crawl and end up late to the office. You reach the office at 7.15am and you find that you have to say hello to the night watchman that’s just about to go home. You spend 1hour 45 minutes reading the paper or sleeping at your desk before you can clock in for work. Then you go home at 5.30pm but you don’t, as traffic is bad during this time. You then leave at 6.30pm, but traffic is still bad and you get home to your Templar Park bungalow at 8.15pm just in time for dinner which your wife has bought and not cooked as you had to pick her up at her work place on your way home from work. Where is the actual quality of life when you don’t enjoy even home cooked food most of the time?

Technically if you do the maths, you only spend a few waking hours at your dream bungalow per day and then you have to sleep. The process is continued throughout the week. Tell me why in the world are you actually paying that high monthly installment for your bungalow in the middle of nowhere and your MPV which you drive to work alone which in fact gobbles up our precious fuel as it’s empty (underutilised seats), heavy and uneconomical? The fact is even slightly ironic as due to the petrol hike to RM2.70 per liter you now drive that huge MPV to the KTM Commuter station and hop on the train to KL and then take a Rapid KL bus to the office. Makes you wonder why you have a car or a MPV in the first place. It is also because of your big bungalow in the country that you can’t even have hobbies or buy really nice stuff. This is most of the time. If you aren’t the person here good for you.

And in the process of doing all that. They fail to actually sit back and smell the roses. What they need to be doing at the age of 29-40 is enjoy their youth. It is during this age that most of us have our strength and the money to actually go out and travel, buy their luxury wants and needs, buy that dream car, enjoy their girlfriend’s company or wife at that matter. What you need to be doing at around 30 is to have quality of life. By the time you’re 55 your body will scream if you suddenly decided to go buy that sports car or super bike you've always wanted, horseback riding, mountain climbing or driving very fast around Sepang. 

This is because your reflexes are already slow. These things need to be done now, not later. I know there are many individuals who think that they have time to do this after they’ve retired or after their kids have gone to college. By then, they’re old, pot bellied, and hair growing out of their ears instead of on their heads and bones creaking, ready to snap and pop at whim. Your hopes and dreams can’t wait that long. Your lives if you follow the schedule above is as dull as watching paint dry. What you need is QUALITY of life not QUANTITY. Your bungalow in Rawang is quantity, your life because it’s so far lacks quality. Get it.

What you need to be doing is actually buy a decent sized apartment in the Petaling Jaya or KL area. Decent here means a 900 to1,000 square feet apartment if you can’t afford larger. Be about 30-45minutes away from work even in after factoring rush hour jams and then you can actually spend precious time at home with the wife and kids or whatever you feel is precious to you. If you live close by, you don’t waste 4 hours per day commuting but only 2 hours. Your health will also be better. You may live longer due to less stress. You also can spend time on your hobbies. You can actually have a decent cup of tea in the morning before work instead of rushing like crazy. I don’t rush. I don’t need to rush because I live in PJ and work in KL. The road system is fully developed with lots of different ways of escape.

You think my idea is wrong? No it's not. Let's take for example a certain Mr. Donald Trump. He is a billionaire Real Estate Developer, Self-help book Author, Entrepreneur, TV star and among others a celebrity practises this theory. He is based in New York, so he has a penthouse apartment close to his office and he also has weekend homes situated right outside New York. It makes so much sense this way as for him, time is money. Time should be money to most people too!

I live in an apartment. I don’t pay lots of money per month for it and because of that I can afford a trip down south to Singapore for shopping every 6 months. I already have more grown up toys like Swiss watches and good shoes than any grown man actually needs. I have a daughter I can be home to hang out with by 6.00pm on work days and I only drive a measly Impreza TS. But in Malaysia, you tell me how many people can actually say that they don’t drive a Saga, Myvi, Vios, City or a Waja? I consider myself slightly lucky that I am not one paying ridiculous monthly instalments for a bungalow in the middle of nowhere. I am also demanding that the people who consider themselves as "motoring enthusiasts" but buy MPVs, dull cars because they have a large kid or two that supposedly cannot fit normal sedans and because of paying instalments for Bungalows in the middle of nowhere change their mindset slightly! Is that so much to ask?