Why I’m not taking a “gap year”

It’s halfway through my final semester at university, and I swirl in the chair facing my kindly tutor in his particularly ordinary office.

“So, what are your plans after graduating?”
“I’m going to travel.”
“Oh, so you’re taking a gap year.”
“No,” I tell him sternly, “I’m going to travel.”
“…Right.”

This conversation has taken place with every acquaintance I have been unfortunate enough to cross paths with. Alternative endings include: “that’s nice”, “oh, how exciting!” or “I wish I could do that”, thus missing my explicit critique of the cultural discourses embedded within the term “gap year.”

We have been conditioned to think that whatever does not follow the paved road of graduating high-school, getting a bachelor’s degree, getting a master’s, and then getting a 9–5 job is falling into a “gap” in which you are not progressing with your life. If we spend any time outside these grey, square lines, we are either useless, clueless or irresponsible.

Even if we may have learnt a whole different set of valuable knowledge while travelling — like how to communicate without a common language, or how to summon the capacity to climb down into the canyon — we are still considered to be wasting our time by not complying with the rest of society’s expectations.

Although, it is still perfectly acceptable to take a gap year. If you are taking a gap year, your life is on hold, and you become a deviant within established norms. One can go stack shelves and wait tables to save up for that 14-hour flight to volunteer in a Cambodian orphanage and do the “finding yourself” bullshit (all of which I am guilty of). However, it is only acceptable if it is placed between two of the completed aforementioned steps of a typical life plan. In other words, only if you are intending to return to the conventional path once you are done being a long-haired, barefoot, free spirit.

The gap year can be seen as a purge in which young people can get a taste of what life could be like if they followed their hearts and enjoyed the thrills of experiencing new cultures, but God forbid they spend more than one year doing that.

We see education as something that needs to be given to us. Traditionally we think that only in institutions such as schools, colleges and universities can we have knowledge unloaded onto us, so that later we can get a job and become a reliable consumer as our lives are consumed by some company that doesn’t give a shit about us.

Luckily, education is becoming an increasingly flexible concept, especially with so many opportunities being available on the internet. Online courses,
Youtube lessons and top-notch articles are just a few clicks away — it is up to you to go look for what you want to learn about the world.

And in some ways, the fact that everything we learn is about the world… is a problem. Our Western culture does not particularly encourage us to learn about ourselves and what we are capable of, nor would we really know how to do that if we wanted to. Our education is focused outwards, and neglects our inner needs to develop.

We are not taught how to deal with difficult situations, thoughts, emotions, or people, so on our way through life we get hurt and scarred. This alters our character as we grow up and it takes a whole lot of effort to heal from traumatizing events (even if you don’t consider a case of emotional suppression particularly traumatizing it may stick around in your subconscious for years).

There is a chasm between our human needs and what education provides. We are not even taught how to deal with the disturbing material we study, such as: social discrimination, economic exploitation, technological domination, political corruption, and environmental destruction. What else do you need for a panic attack?

We are given an intellectual load we cannot emotionally handle.

If we allow it into our hearts, we may crumble like a pillar of sand. If you happen to be graduating, let’s allow ourselves to think outside this box we have been placed in. We are the batch of 2018, or whatever year, stamped with an expiration date due in 50 years; and hopefully we get a pension to keep us going until the termination date. We do not always realize we have a choice to participate in this mass economy of intellect.

So am I taking a gap year to go travelling?

No. I am continuing the trajectory of my life without any gaps. Regardless of what your dentist may tell you, there are no gaps in life. Even if you sit in your basement for a year this is not a gap; you did what you apparently needed to do and learnt something from it.

Please remember, now as you venture to follow what you may think is your own path, to check if it is really you who have paved it there. Meanwhile, I am going to continue learning and being productive and creative just as I have in previous years, if not more, and this will be in my own terms.

A one-way ticket, no time-frame and a pursuit of my own form of education — I am certainly looking forward to the adventure!

Illustration by Amu Endo