5 Life-Changing Lessons I Learnt After Leaving Home With No Plan

I left my hometown on October 19th 2024 with no plan… just a suitcase and a dream. After 3 months of living in the city, what I learned out there changed my life forever.

Lesson #1. Appreciating my parents a lot more

Everything is so god damn expensive and working full-time 40 hours a week just to break even isn't easy.

While I was living with my parents, I wanted to move out. I started to resent my hometown, being so negative, and finding all the reasons under the sun as to why it is the worst place to live right now. It only took for me to move out to find out how good I had it back home.

How great it was when my mum made home cooked dinners, cleaned the house, whilst also working on her business.

I'm so grateful I am for the decades of sacrifice my dad made for me working his ass off to give me the best life possible.

There is so much to be grateful for, and you will truly experience this level of gratitude once you move out and take on the real world.

#2. You cannot get ahead in this world by having "free time"

If you want to get ahead in life and get out of the rat race, you have to sacrifice your weekends to build, learn, or focus on something that will allow you to live the life most people can only dream of.

Before I started working a full-time job, I was saying to myself, "I'll work on my personal projects on the weekends and after I finish work and finish going to the gym". I quickly found out that this is A LOT easier said than done and in reality I used my weekends to recover and "enjoy myself".

If you live in a western country like me, you know that just to buy a house you will need upwards of 6 figures saved just to put a deposit down for a house and so your mortgage payment is just affordable.

#3. You don't have "freedom" like most people say

You don't actually work 40 hours a week, it is more like 60 hours after you take into account the time you wake up to get ready for work and commute time to and from work. Also, work time still counts when get you get changed and shower.

Most people say, "you got freedom after work on a Friday night and on the weekends to do whatever you want". FALSE!

I quickly found out that I ended up sleeping in on the weekends just to recover from mental exhaustion from work.

Also, since you are working long hours at a job that you don't like (as 85% of people dislike their jobs), you need a crutch.

For me that was ordering takeout since I didn't want to spend the little free time I had cooking.

So I traded more of my time for money to live a worse life to then spend more money to escape my worse life. Make that make sense.

#4. Family (and relationships) are everything

Once I moved away from my family, I felt isolated and lonely, as I now have no friends and I can't spend time with my family.

I took for granted the times I could spend with my brothers playing cricket in the backyard on a Saturday morning, going to the beach with them, jumping in the pool with them, and having fun. Every time my brothers asked me to play cricket with them, I always said no. It is one of the biggest regrets I still have to this day.

You truly don't realise what you have until you don't have it anymore, and I am so grateful to experience this now for myself.

#5. Your mental health is everything (freedom > rich)

If you aren't happy with your life, who cares how much money you make. I came to the conclusion that I would rather be making $40,000 per year from my personal projects, have complete freedom to live where I want, and have freedom over my schedule than to make $400,000 per year and be stressed, tired, and depressed because I have to commute to the office and work 60+ hours a week.

On top of that, since I make a lot of money, my boss will be on my arse, even on the weekends, and I won't the freedom to use the money to travel whenever I want and do what I want.

The point of all of this is to keep in mind that you DO NOT want to sacrifice your health, freedom, and relationships for more money.

In Summary

These are the 5 life-changing Lessons I learned after leaving my hometown without a plan:

#1. Appreciating my parents a lot more

#2. You cannot get ahead in this world by having "free time"

#3. You don't have "freedom" like most people say

#4. Family (and relationships) are everything

#5. Your mental health is everything (freedom > rich)