As I was contemplating what I had to say this week that would be worthwhile, it occurred to me that everything I write has most certainly been said before. Thus, the better question might be: what have I heard that bears repeating? And this was a surprisingly easy question to answer.

The research program I participated in this summer culminated with a keynote address from one of the University of Chicago’s preeminent doctors of political science. She posed one of the best-stated challenges I’ve yet encountered, in asking my cohort and me, “Are you paying your rent?” She told our group that, as students at America’s premier universities, we take up more space than almost anyone else in this world. Everyone, from the Philippines to Mexico, has rent to pay and, as some of the most blessed people in the world, our rent is steep. What we barter is limited only by our ingenuity and intellect and we should rejoice in its paying.

I have, as one of my friends likes to heckle me, transcended religion like so many of my peers. For the duration of my college career, my values have been in the infant stages of development and have depended more on the time of day and my mood than anything else. When our keynote speaker implied that there was some essential and immutable pillar to any viable value system, whether or not I acknowledged it, I balked. Her message was so simple, yet so transformative: to imply that I owe my immediate and global community a service means that to pat myself on the back for social activism and community service is congratulating myself for merely meeting an obligation.

Maybe this message isn’t as dynamic as I believe, but I see its potential to reframe our community’s thinking. Many of us do community service, but the self-congratulatory inclination to mention our work with “inner-city kids” or “poor immigrants” says a lot about whether we believe we’re paying rent or making a charity donation. Not to reduce this to semantics, but as modern feminism has taught us, the words we use betray the way we think. And if we think we’re doing the world a favor, we’re invariably more likely to fall behind on rent.

Three times a week, staff columnists take up your time to wax rhapsodic about the injustices on this campus and in the world. Knowing that we have rent to pay means that we consider each of these challenges an opportunity to make a few extra bucks for the rent. You broke? What have you heard about the committee for a Civilian Oversight Board? Did you read the challenge to act against recent handgun or abortion legislation in Missouri?

As you reconcile these words with your own value systems, consider the deeply moving question my landlord asked me just this morning. He didn’t care that I’ve been sick and have a two-page to-do list. He was only driven to say, “The rent is due. Are you paying?”

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