There was a time when life’s milestones followed a predictable, slow-motion script. You’d finish your degree, land a secure job, and spend a few years saving for a scooter or maybe a tiny apartment. Marriage, and all that came with it, was something you’d even consider a decade or so down the line. It was a life lived at a pace that perfectly matched the salary you brought home.
Today, that whole playbook feels like ancient history. We’re living in a world of instant gratification, and not just for our food or movies. We want instant milestones. We see a colleague get a promotion and we want one too. A friend buys a new car and suddenly our old one feels like a dinosaur. And we want that house, that vacation, that lifestyle—right now.
The problem? Most of us don’t have the cash to keep up with this kind of speed. But we’ve found a workaround: debt.
We’ve turned our lives into a series of EMIs. We buy the expensive car on a loan. We put the down payment for the house on borrowed money. We take out personal loans for vacations we can’t afford. It’s like we’ve installed a nitro booster in our lives, but the fuel for that booster is money we haven’t earned yet.
It’s one thing to accelerate with the fuel you’ve got in the tank. You earned it, you can burn it. But when you start borrowing fuel just to keep up with the guy next to you, that’s when things get tricky. We’re so focused on the thrill of the speed that we ignore the fuel gauge. We’re so busy admiring the view from the fast lane that we don’t realize the cost of staying there.
Our parents built their lives brick by brick, earning each one. We’re using credit cards to buy bricks and hoping we can pay it off before the whole wall comes crashing down.
And for what? A fleeting moment of glory on Instagram? The momentary feeling of having “made it” before our 30th birthday?
It’s all fun and games until the bills start coming in, and they come in at their own pace, no matter how fast you’re going. The slow, steady drip of interest payments on that fast life begins to wear you down. The stress of having to out-earn your outgoings starts to chip away at your happiness.
Maybe it’s time we all took a collective breath. Maybe it’s time to slow down, to live at a speed our wallets can actually handle. Because a life built on solid ground, even if it takes a little longer, is a lot more stable than one built on borrowed time.
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