After graduating from college, we are often met with congratulatory messages followed by cliché lines such as, “Welcome to the real world!”

But what is the real world anyway?

Is it working at least eight hours a day? Is it trying to survive the next couple of weeks while waiting for your paycheck, most of which is already going toward the bills hanging on the refrigerator? Or maybe it is waiting for the week to end just so you can finally sleep in on your day off?

For the longest time, I have wondered what people meant by the “real world,” because I have always been in it.

Do not get me wrong. Of course, that has not been the life I have been living for the past 23 years. But if those are some of the things that constitute living in the real world, well, I beg to differ.

Like many Filipino families, I grew up enjoying the simple privileges of being part of the middle class, but I also lived with the struggles that came with it. When money ran short, one problem dominoed into another: promissory notes, bank loans and even having to make do with fewer resources.

At a very early age, I learned to make the most of everything I owned. I understood that what I had was not easily handed to me, and I never took anything for granted.

When I finished my bachelor’s degree, it was no surprise that I received the same message from relatives and friends: “Welcome to the real world.”

I looked for a job, moved into a new apartment and began living independently. But those are merely parts of adulthood, not some grand entrance into the “real world.”

Because the real world is more than work, paychecks and bills. It is made up of struggles, an understanding of how life really works and the constant fight for a better tomorrow.

So entering the real world at 23 was never something new to me.

I was born in it.