The Real World, or Something Like It?

For much of my life, and perhaps it is similar for some of my fellow “millennials” (er…. wait… Is it safe for me to use a buzzword whose recent use in pop culture and news sources appears too loaded with seemingly judgmental undertones?), I have come in contact with a term which, depending on circumstances, I have both welcomed and pushed away. I find it amusing that the term is both the title of an old school reality TV show and also one which characterizes that elusive but ever-present not-yet-but-dammit-you-better-watch-your-back- quality of whichever succeeding event happens to be next in the life of an adolescent or twenty something (or heck, even beyond this timeframe). This event could be any number of pivotal moments in a person’s development: stepping out of the elementary school afternoons of jungle gyms and into the  middle school wing of hormonal teenagers, for example; or a bit further down the road, stepping past the podium where the college dean garbles your name and hands you a diploma, and into the hands of student loan providers and a less-than-ripe job market you go. 

You know the term I'm talking about…

That frightening, all-encompassing, anxiety-producing…real world.

I am embarking on my own next real world. And I have to be honest: it’s both terribly exciting and terribly scary.

Two weeks ago, I mustered up the strength to make an important call to my student loan provider (yes, that is about as real world as it gets) and talk through some options for paying back some of the debt I carry with me post-college. Considering the level of bureaucracy I was dealing with (and on the phone, no doubt), the customer service agent I talked with was kind, straightforward, and seemingly cared about me as a human being beyond my status as a consumer. Even so, the conversation left me drained and spun me into a whirpool of worry and obsessive thinking (granted, in the brain of Eva Englert, that is not often hard to do):

“I’ll be paying these back FOREVER. Forget about doing anything fun or pursuing any of my dreams ever.

How will I make enough money living in an expensive city to both cover basic needs and pay loans back?

I know I haven’t exactly signed up to be wealthy with my chosen vocational path…. But how much longer will I have to be this poor??”

Self-pity and a tendency to over think aside, a deeper truth that struck me while grappling with my current economic situation is the liminal space I currently find myself in. I have been blessed, fortunate, privileged—a nuanced combination of the three, perhaps—to experience a quality liberal arts education where I learned how to think critically and explore multiple disciplines of study in and outside of the classroom. Even beyond my college experience, I have been immersed in a counterculturally idealistic world of service, community, and spirituality with the Life Together program I’ve been a part of for nearly two years. I have been supported professionally, emotionally, spiritually and physically (I’m provided housing and transport, as well as modest but sufficient funds for living expenses) and have been given immense opportunity to pursue areas of work and leadership which I am passionate about. I’m months away from beginning a Masters of Divinity at a school which will also support me in these ways, and I am deeply connected to family, friends, and other layers of relational support within and beyond these communities. 

The liminality I speak of shows itself as I face the reality that paying rent amidst Boston housing prices and beginning to eliminate student debt before Big Brother comes after me could very well mean an abrupt departure from a community culture in which providing for basic human needs beyond the mere physical is a core value and commitment. 

One could make the case that I could have chosen to get a “real job” after college (one that would more than likely put me in an office or cubicle in a basement with no windows). That is precisely what did not excite me. I came to the faith and justice/service world because it was a place that would allow me to be an agent, to grapple with issues and challenges that I care about deeply and learn about how to impact the world for the better in direct ways, and to be in a spiritually nourishing community of fellow young adults even if the paychecks were small. As I get ready to leave Life Together, my impending financial obligations are… somewhat daunting. They seem to embody the opposite of what I am convicted that life is about. I’m not so naïve to think that life should come with no expenses. Life costs money, yes, but to confront head-on a market economy that measures human worth in dollar signs is to swallow a hard pill.

I feel compelled to share this bit of my reality because I think it taps into something far beyond me and my worries as an individual young adult and into the deeper issues of economic struggle and injustice that comprise so much of American life today, and for many people in many more deeply difficult ways than in my own story.

Call me out for beating a dead horse? Fine. I think, however, that there must be room made to talk about the implications of a society which seemingly desires to uplift its people—particularly its young people—for their sense of innovation, uniqueness, entrepreneurial spirit, and what I generally experience as a concern for others and for social change, while also failing to acknowledge something critical. The reality of working life in the United States is centered on being a “productive member of society” as measured primarily through quantitative data which highly disregards the necessity of a living wage and those things which simply make life truly meaningful and healthy.

This reality is a stark contradiction to the romanticized innovation, uniqueness, and spirit I’m encouraged as a young person to make manifest. How am I to reconcile the Eva told from elementary school onward to pursue my dreams, do something good for the world, and “do something for society,” when the machine I’m a cog for in this society is running to keep its wealthiest and most privileged parts working the best? Where is the both/and interaction here? Where can individual sacrifice (e.g. my own choice to put aside life ambitions which are a luxury but not a necessity) meet a real world which better cares for all of its people, starting perhaps with a distribution of resources that ensures life abundant (sorry, I had to get at least a little Jesus-y) for all people: basic needs and care, agency and ability to produce food/goods/services that are good for people and the earth, and participation in making decisions within bodies of community and governance, to name a few? If we want a nation and a world which allow its people to pursue what they are passionate about and gifted in, how do we structure communities in such a way that will support them? Can or should this gap between the ideal and the real world exist? I feel called to say a resounding “no.”

Here’s to the work of bridging it… after I pay this student loan bill.