My best friend in Oklahoma had a daughter that started college this year. It was a happy, yet somewhat sad occasion. I flew out there to help move her daughter closer to the university, and our search for a luxury apartment was an interesting one, to say the least.

First, they are pretty well off, and the price wasn’t an issue. We looked around Oklahoma City for condos, duplexes, rental homes, luxury apartments, and lofts that would accommodate the needs of her princess. This was difficult due to the nature of her mother, I love her to death, but she is one picky person. If it wasn’t exterior she had issues with it was the interior. Our search lasted an entire weekend before she settled on a place to call home for the next four years. 

My initial thought was, why not just move her to campus where she can room with some classmates? Why the need to put her up into an apartment for $1,000 a month or more when there were more affordable housing options closer to campus. Well, silly me. It wasn’t about the convenience of the location as much as it was about the status of where she was staying. They ended up renting a beautiful luxury apartment in Oklahoma City at J Marshall Square. This is a premier piece of real estate where elite residence rent and her daughter fit right in.

If this was my daughter, we would’ve made a trip to Ikea, and the apartment would have been furnished with our old furniture, and some new items purchased from Ikea. Not her though, they went and bought some of the most luxurious pieces of furniture they could find. White wrap-around leather couches for the living area, oak wood kitchen table, 60 inch flat screen TV, a new desk, and kitchen supplies that would have been enough for me and my family of six. 

I’m not knocking her decision to rent a luxury apartment for her daughter, I think at the end of the day if I could afford it, I would have done the same. But there is something to be said about the struggle, and having everything handed to you doesn’t necessarily build the character that struggling does. I was long gone from my home by the time my little brother graduated from college, he was spoiled like this girl, and his work ethic is pathetic. He has never held a job, hasn’t found a job, and isn’t aggressively pursuing one. This is what I expect from her daughter post-graduation. 

Who knows though, maybe it’s a different vibe in Oklahoma City than it is here in Arizona. Perhaps these types of lessons aren’t needed in the midwest. Out here in the Southwest, you better come out of college hustling or you will get left behind real quick.