“When are you going to buy a house?”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked that question.
I sighed. We were having the same conversation.
The same subtle pressure to buy a house instead of paying high rent to live in the city centre.
Seriously? We had to talk about this again? I needed to explain it over again?
No matter how often I tell them that it’s truly not expensive for us, that it’s worth it, and that we’d rather live in a rental house in the city centre than a self-owned, faraway one that would cause a daily time-consuming commute for my husband — they won’t buy it.
People need to stop believing there’s a one-size-fits-all definition of success, as though those who don’t are not living successful lives.
Having a stable job (being a civil servant is the dreamiest job here), owning a house and cars.
How can anyone set the exact same bars for everyone?
It’s getting irritating when one of my family members subtly demands that my husband and I buy a house or move to a larger rental so they can stay over conveniently without disrupting our routines.
They never asked whether that was even the life I wanted.
I understand that they mean well. To them, homeownership equals stability. Maybe because that’s what they were taught their entire lives.
But sometimes, people forget that not everyone dreams of the same life.
Some people feel fulfilled climbing the corporate ladder.
Some want a quiet life with fewer responsibilities.
Some choose flexibility over stability.
Some are still figuring things out.
And none of those paths should automatically be seen as failures.
Well-being has never been one-dimensional. Even the OECD’s Better Life Index considers factors such as work-life balance, health, community, and life satisfaction.
Not just income or homeownership.
What makes it exhausting is not the advice itself, but the assumption behind it, that a person’s worth can be measured by how well they tick all the boxes society expects.
We used to question ourselves a lot because of that.
Are we falling behind? Are we making the wrong choices?
But the older I get, the more I realize that forcing everyone into the same definition of success only creates unhappy people living lives they never truly wanted.
Being different is difficult because society rewards conformity.
But living a life that doesn’t feel authentic to yourself is even harder.
Read More: Our House-hunting Experience in Jakarta
