A Guest Blog By Emma Grinde!
Throughout high school I dreaded being asked about where I wanted to go to college and what I would be studying. I recall feeling so much pressure during my last two years of high school because preparations for college were looming over me. Once I got to college there was a brief reprieve from such questions but then came the “What are you going to do after college, you know, when you’re in THE REAL WORLD?” kind of questions.
I wrote this poem soon after I graduated from college, while living at home driving from one interview to the next, feeling like I didn’t really matter in the world until I had a full-time-not-just-for-the-summer job with benefits and health insurance:
No longer a student,
my primary purpose is
no longer learning. Next year
my tax return will not have
“student” scrawled in the
occupation box. I am now
expected to be a Contributor
of Society—have these
past 17 years spent at
a desk absorbing the wisdom
of teachers and professors
and experience not mattered?
What about the countless
hours agonized over
long division and organic chemistry
and the art of kneading bread?
Have these not been a contribution?
Am I nothing until
the day I can hold a diploma
in one hand and a job offer in the other?
Fire fighters and doctors are not the only people who contribute to THE REAL WORLD. A hand extended in kindness, a prayer for peace offer up, a tongue held instead of lashing out with words of anger, a smile of acknowledgement offered to the stranger on the sidewalk: all these things contribute to making THE REAL WORLD a better place and you don’t need a degree, a job, or any qualification to do them. THE REAL WORLD is now and we are all good enough, no matter where we are on our journeys, to be a part of it.
To read more by Emma, , visit her blog: http://ecgrinde.blogspot.com/