The Real World: When Life Stops Being Polite and Starts Getting Real
When sleeping in a drainage tunnel seemed like a real possibility
The whole transition from college to the “real world” is something that gets talked about from the first day of freshman year until graduation day (or until you’ve successfully tricked your family into thinking you’re an adult). It’s something that hangs over your time at college with people constantly saying things like, “Get ready for a reality check”, “You’re gonna have bills and responsibilities”, “You can’t get drunk on a Tuesday anymore.” We get conditioned to dread this transition from carefree college fun to 9-5 commutable regularity. It’s something that I feel forced to complain about. That if I say that it’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done I’m lying to myself. Don’t get me wrong there are things that are difficult not having your 200 best friend within 10 minutes of you, constant activities on the weekends, not having a wealth of responsibilities, but having the right perspective can really help.
When I graduated from college I was one of those people that had literally no idea what their postgrad plans were. I had a trip over the summer that would help me pretend like I wasn’t technically unemployed but other than that, nothing. I don’t know what it is about having an event coming up that all your other plans turn into, “oh I’ll do that when fill in the blank is over.” It’s only worse because my friends were posting about their new jobs and i felt like an underachieving lump of crap. OF COURSE the people who are in the same boat as me aren’t posting about their struggle to find a job. Why would anybody want to ruin their beautifully cultivated image on Facebook with the actual realities of life? I mean, I didn’t talk about not having a job either, unless you count forced conversations with literally every family member I ran into. You have to get your script down real quick to avoid those prolonged conversations, otherwise you’ll be there taking advice from people who don’t even remotely have their lives together, “See what you need to do is tell them you’ll work the first month free...” It’s like, hey man, aren’t you sleeping on someone’s couch? I really don’t need this right now.
Still, I was in a really fortunate position despite my procrastination. When I was younger my dad would, sometimes literally, drag me out of bed to work with him on the weekends. He manages rental properties as a hobby (I have no idea why, take up fishing or cross-stitching or literally anything else) and he always needed some unskilled manual labor. I learned everything from carpentry, to plumbing, electrical, drywall, but most importantly I can tape off a room for paint with the best of ‘em. I will unscrew the shit out of your outlet covers and switch plates! This past summer I was able to have at least some type of job, even though it was part time, so that I wasn’t completely mooching off my parents, only partially mooching. This also meant I didn’t have to apply for terrible jobs and could focus on ones that I actually wanted to do.
Although I wasn’t facing the intense pressure that I know some of my peers were facing, there is a sense of disappointment that seemed to creep in. I put out well over 25 applications and maybe heard back from 5. Most of them telling me that they would be moving in a different direction. Rejection, even if you don’t have your hopes that high wears on you. I kept thinking about all the things my parents had done to get me to where I was felt like I was somehow letting them down. That type of thinking can really get to you, it can make you not want to go out, talk to your friends, a lot of things just because you don’t want to have to explain for the thousandth time how, “...I have some applications out and I waiting to hear back blah, blah, blah.” It’s not until you start getting interviews and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that you feel like you can breathe. I was able to tread water and realize that my generation puts too much pressure looking for the wrong type of results.
*Excuse me while I get philosophical right quick
We’ve been raised as the “you can be anything you want generation” and while you’re young this seems like a generally good motto. When you're in college the world is still wide open to you. The possibilities are endless. There’s no pressure to immediately choose a path because the goal of reaching college was so recently achieved. Mama we made it! But as college winds down you have to start picking your lane as those possible paths begin narrow down a little. Biology, Political Science, Communications, any major you can think of is a narrowing point. But because this whole “you can be anything” mentality has been ingrained we still look at it as, “I can be anything that’s related to Biology.” The “wake-up call” that people have turned into a cliche at this point is the realization, “oh shit, I can’t be whatever I want.” Realizing that at 5’8” and with limited vertical abilities I wasn’t going to be playing in the NBA was tough. Coming to terms with the fact that I had to choose exactly what I was going to be doing for, at the very least, near future was terrifying. When you’ve been told you can be anything, being anything short of extraordinary seems like a failure. We’ve put so much pressure on ourselves to be great that we don’t realize its a process and sometimes settling is the right move for right now.
The paths our lives take are not wide but windy. It seem to be going in one direction only for it to double back on itself and take the opposite course. Life doesn’t have a million different options it has one option presented a million different ways. Whether or not you believe in fate or destiny or “a man with a plan” if you control the inputs in your life that output tends to take care of itself. At least I hope so.
That sounded good, right? But what the fuck do I know? I’m a year out of college and I’m talking like Warren Buffett. I felt like one of those people from high school sharing inspirational quotes while they still live in your home town. Sorry about that. But if you are reading this and are going through or are anticipating that uncomfortable unknown right after you graduate just know that things will work out. It did for me and I'm astoundingly mediocre.