The real world is whatever you make it
A year ago today, I became an official college graduate. I drank a Bloody Mary at 6 a.m., walked across the stage in a gold glittery cap and accepted a piece of paper that pushed me into the next socioeconomic class. If you had asked me then where I would be today, I would have bet a good amount of money that I’d be working in PR in Northern California with a ring on my finger–doing everything I was expected to.
My, how things have changed. I thought that my five-week backpacking trip through Europe was going be my last hoorah before life in a cubicle. I thought that failing to study abroad in college meant that I would never live abroad, yet here I am in Nice.
While I know that I’m still very young and have a lot of learning to do, there’s one fundamental thing that I realized this year: the real world is whatever you make it.
College seniors are all a bit terrified of the “real world.” The real world is a an euphumism for a grown-up job, grown-up bills and grown-up worries. Who wants to give up sleeping in, cheap drinks and living with your best friends for that?
If you want the real world to be 12-hour days, two-week rushcations and seeing the sunshine from the confines of your cubicle, it can be. And according to the American dream, maybe that’s what it should be. But the real world can also be traveling around the world, starting your own business, following your dreams.
Bottom line: the real world is whatever you want it to be. No one forces you to give up your dreams the minute they hand you a diploma. If you regret not traveling abroad, studying a language or majoring in philosophy–do something about it! Life is far too short to live with regrets.
Congratulations, class of 2010. Dare to live the life you dreamed. Move forward and make your dreams come true.
