"I just found out there's no such thing as the real world, it's just a lie you've got to rise above." John Mayer
It's a reality show on MTV. It's an intimidation factor adults use on high schoolers. It's a looming threat that haunts college students. But mostly "the real world" is, ironically, pretend. When you are told in a college class how it's going to be in the real world, you are really being explained the rules of the game, in case you choose to play. What people don't realize early on is that they have a choice of whether to play or not.
For most people your degree is how you get into the real world. When they hand you your diploma, they are really just handing you your game piece. Maybe, by way of major declaration, you've chosen to be the horse or the car or the top hat and now people expect you to do something horse-ish, car-like or top hat-esque. People forget that when you chose to be the horse you were only eighteen or nineteen and strong armed into playing the game they so cleverly disguised as "the real world". When you are handed your game piece, you are only twenty-one or so and are just approaching the age in which you should actually be considering your game piece. But by this time it's too late. You're in the game and probably are actually chomping at the bit (especially if you're the horse) to play.
Sometimes real life gets in the way of the real world. One minute you're rolling the dice, playing the game and the next you're drawing a card that says take your four year degree to the nearest coffee house and start pouring.
There is such guilt and shame when you have a shiny new game piece and you've been reduced to placing it on the jail square indefinitely. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, just sit there and hope that you draw a get out of jail free card soon. But this is real life and don't let the real world players make you feel guilty for living it.
There is freedom in not playing the game, but in living out real life. The real world players are only happy when the game is over and they own the most real estate with the most hotels. Why pursue the appearance of happiness when you can pursue joy?
"You will show me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16:11
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2
