No Case, No Rules: What My iPhone Taught Me About Life

I’ve been using my iPhone 14 for more than a year now, and I’m always torn between using a phone casing or not.

I personally love it without one. I like the feeling of my iPhone being bare, and I keep thinking—why should an iPhone be fragile when we already paid thousands of ringgit for it? The material is titanium: very hard, very durable. But at the same time, I feel pulled to use a case because people say it’s safer, that it protects the phone so it won’t crack, dent, or scratch.

My current iPhone 14 already shows a few marks from me not using a case, but to me it just proves I’m using my phone. Normal things. Even my MacBook doesn’t have a casing. My car doesn’t have a casing. I myself don’t have a casing. And now, when I talk about this, it makes me think—ah, this is how I always am: to be myself, or to be what others want me to be.

Today, a colleague of mine caught my eye. I saw his iPhone: nothing on it. No case, no screen protector, and—oh my god—so many dents and scratches. Weirdly, I didn’t feel pity or think it was a waste. I felt wow. I felt like that’s what a phone is supposed to be: being used, proving that the owner lives with it, and it still serves.

And actually, that’s what I’m seeing in my life right now. Those full-time travellers. People without a 9-to-5 job. People with minimal money. No retirement savings. No mortgage. No car. Society sees them as failures—people who need to “fix” their lives. But. Big but. I don’t see them like that. I see them as people who are living their best life. I see them as people who are so brave—to do what society says don’t do, simply because of the risk. I see them with awe, with wonder, with inspiration, with courage. And I want to be like that too.

I don’t want to follow what society decides. My life is not just this. My life is not about making my boss rich and counting my annual leave just to feel alive. My life is mine, and I decide how I want to create it. I don’t need people’s rules, corporate rules, or society’s rules just to be alive—just to be what humans are supposed to be.

Humans have come so far, and now we’re all stuck under fluorescent lights, grey walls, and the pings of emails from people who are utterly depressed? No. Life is not supposed to be that. I’m not saying those lives are wrong. I’m saying the world is evolving, and why should we blindly follow what previous generations did just to survive. Right?