Apartment hunting

I’m not the only one. Free of the shackles of needing to turn up to an office every day, many have worked out they can move somewhere like Thailand and enjoy a greater amount of freedom.

If you can work out a way to earn even half your home salary online, you can afford to live a good lifestyle in Thailand. But to what end? Is it enough just to get by?

I don’t think so. Yet many move over here and settle for just getting by, that is, paying their bills month to month. Similarly back home life has become so expensive that many can afford to do little else, despite earning good salaries.

So what happened? Has the West failed my generation? I think we are in a phase where property and other things are expensive compared to salaries. A phase, not permanent. But if it’s a phase that lasts 15 years, then it will certainly seem permanent to many. Arguably we are about 6-7 years in, and who knows how much longer we have to go before salaries catch up to the cost of living.

Understandably, with no set time frame, many are not prepared to hang around waiting. Economic incentives make things flow, and people like water will flow to the path of least resistance. It is for this reason then that a sort of reverse migration phenomenon has begun where young educated Westerners are moving to countries where traditionally, people have lined up to leave and get in to a Western country.

Though you wouldn’t know it in central Bangkok. It has become very well developed. The gap between the West and the rest of the world it seems is closing. Fast.

I think there is a silver lining to this reverse migration trend. For one thing it should lead to greater wealth distribution as high income earners take their purchasing power to poorer regions. Additionally there will be a knowledge transfer over time. Though I’m yet to see any country out there take full advantage of this growing nomadic talent pool.

This may be changing. Recently English language studies became compulsory in Thai schools. As English permeates the society, it will open up the workplace to foreign talent that could augment the local workforce. This is the case in countries like Malaysia, The Philippines and Singapore where English is widely spoken.

In walking from one gleaming department store to the next though you are reminded of the poverty. Only a few paces from the towers of glass and lights, a child sits on the side of the road, barefoot and dirty. My eyes well up as I’m reminded how terribly unfair the world is.

Unfortunately that is the reality for many. Poverty and struggle.

So no, it’s not enough just to get by. If you were born into a developed country you were given the golden ticket from birth. I feel I owe some kind of a debt.

The first part of that debt is to my home country. Australia and other developed countries are not perfect, but you only have to travel a little to realise they’re an oasis in a desert. An oasis that was built on hundreds if not thousands of years of work by good people. Generation after generation that did their bit to improve things.

The second part of the debt is to do what I can, in whatever small way, for other countries that have not been so lucky.

Not that the West is better in every aspect. In many ways we fall behind as I described in my previous post. As I write this some guy is pacing around the coffee shop talking loudly on his phone. Silly Westerner, oblivious to his surroundings. I’m tempted to say something, but that would probably make me another silly Westerner.

In developed countries though, people have the opportunity to lead a healthy and dignified life.

So while many in my generation may be tempted to see the current challenges as something permanent and think the West is done, I’m more optimistic.

Of the older generation now in charge of things, they’ve done their best. And their best has been better than anything that has come before. Despite the challenging times, the appropriate response is one of gratitude. They will pass on the baton soon enough. The question is are we, millennials and younger, ready to receive it?

Again I’m optimistic. With one caveat. As a generation we seem to be overly concerned with the tools we have at our disposal (like blockchain and AI) and not enough with the capacity to wield them. Since no matter how powerful the tools become, what we can achieve will always come back to the intrinsic qualities of each individual.

I think there is more room to talk about good old fashioned virtues: discipline, steadfastness, openness, scholarship, athleticism and compassion, to name a few. It is in cultivating these virtues that we can improve the societies that we’ll soon inherit, more so than the next technological innovation.

Will we as a generation give in to scepticism and disillusion, or will we take a constructive approach?

The child on the street has been deprived of that choice, his only concern is survival.

We owe it to him to make the right choice.

Amongst all of that, yes I’m looking for an apartment. One with a nice soft bed, air-conditioning, gym and pool. I hope I’m worthy of it.