Since we get this question a lot, we’ll start our first post about WHY we did what we did and also to quote the famous Simon Sinek, we need to start with WHY. We would love to write a story on the conversations we had leading to this decision but we figured the attention span of the people now (us included) is low so we’re just going to sum it all up: okay wait. You might still need a little bit of context as a reader who we assume does not know who we are and what is going on with our lives right now. Long story short, we’re a middle-income family with two kids, lived in the city all our lives (think shopping malls, yummy food, convenience just right outside our doorstep) and recently moved to a suburb about 45 minutes drive away from the city. It’s not too bad on a good traffic day but let’s just say a good traffic day does not exist 🙂
Okay, context done. So here is WHY:
1) We got influenced by a Netflix show
Haha yup, as shallow as we may sound, you read that right. Hey, don’t act like you never watch something and feel like you want that too okay? It’s no harm if it’s a good reference. We watched this show called ‘Down to Earth’. Ok, it’s not a show. It’s a documentary… see not as bad right? In this documentary, Zac Efron with his hot bod travels around the world and shows us how some parts of the world are living their lives: sustainably with a purpose. I remember there was this town in Italy where the people there were living a slow-paced life, just enjoying the simplest things in life like breathing fresh clean air, drinking water, and eating pasta and that was when we (husband and wife laying on the bed) looked at each other and said ‘we want that life’ and then we went to bed. Nothing happened guys, nothing juicy to share here 🙂
2) We got tired of the typical fast-paced city life
Before we got this ‘Lighthouse’ name for our new baby, we called this project ‘Option F’ and the ‘F” here stands for F*ck it/*F*ck this sh*t/F*ck-them-all , okay you get the idea and of course, we didn’t use it officially because we are not vulgar like that and actually are very nice people :). We call it Option F because we’re tired of Option A, B, C, and D that society gives us and we strongly believe that there is no one way to do things. A typical Malaysian young family’s goal is to earn a decent living, move close to a good school, earn more so we can afford their pianoswimmingroboticsartandcraftjujitsu classes, send them to these classes, save up a bit to renovate the porch, earn more so we can afford their higher education, send them off to their university and look at each other and wonder what happened to our life, who is this person (husband and wife) and then, die. COVID also taught us that life is so short and we rely too much on outside forces. Shortages of toilet rolls, Gardenia bread and all, it really felt like an apocalypse. It made us rethink how we want to live life and want to rely on as little out(re)sources as possible. Maybe we can start our edible garden and if zombies come to attack, we can either tell them we are vegetarian or just throw all our vege to their face and run. Smart huh? 😉
P.S.: F also means family, freedom, and fantastic, not all bad yeah?
3) Cost and waste reduction – the most practical reason for this decision
As you may know, living near the city is not cheap. To own a semi-decent landed house in this country is quite a challenge for middle-income families. Even if you manage to score a property in a decent location, the house is most probably a dilapidated or haunted one and requires major renovation to make it good. A typical thing a young family will do is to get an old property, somewhat near to a good school, renovate the house and try to make it work. I have the same thoughts too but N on the other hand thinks it’s such a waste of materials to demolish a house and to build to our liking and design. He always had a dream to build his own house (too much Ryan Gosling Notebook influence on this guy here) and we did the maths and thought the cost of owning a home near the city vs out of the city is about the same and we can have much more space in comparison. We then set our minds and started land hunting.
And I would love to end this post with:
THE REST IS HISTORY 🙂
Corny but it’s a hope that brings us forward every day. Not saying that this lifestyle is for everyone but I hope you have a hope that you can cling on to, that hope that brings light into your dark gloomy days, that hope that whispers a faint ‘hang in there’ to you giving you a purpose to live and breathe another day knowing you exist for a reason. I hope you find that hope, in whatever form and time that God has planned for you.
Thank you for reading and going on this journey with us.
With love & light,
RR