How far away from home do you want to go?What classes will you be taking?What is your major?What are your hobbies?What do you want to do for the rest of your life?…Those are just a few questions we are bombarded with freshman year and expected to know the answer to.
Gap year: a period, typically an academic year, taken by a student as a break between secondary school and higher education.
Lets get this straight—nearly every other country advocates for students to take a year off of school before entering college to travel the world. Except the U.S. American society has it ingrained in our minds to follow the “norm”. What is the norm? Well, it goes a little bit like this: graduate from high school, go to college, get a job, get married, and start a family. Since it’s a little too late for the average gap year, how about taking a gap year after you graduate? What’s the rush in getting a 9-5 job and working your twenties away? Here are a few reasons why I believe every twenty-some graduate should take a gap year after college:
1) Be selfish. These are your years to explore your likes and dislikes, find your hobbies, fulfill those “me” aspirations. I am a firm believer in finding yourself before you can fully commit to someone else. Be alone, not lonely. Whether it’s reading those life-changing novels your professors recommended or finding that place where you are perfectly at peace, find it, explore it and love it.
2) Feed your soul. The soul is an incredibly powerful part of the body.  There is beautiful peace in discovering the balance between your mind, body and soul.  Feed your soul with new places, faces and food.  Explore your wildest dreams. This is the only time you’ll have the opportunity to be surrounded with unfamiliar faces. Explore those hobbies you’ve always wanted. Attend yoga classes, cooking classes or learn a foreign language. Feeding your soul will only help you find “you” and grow as an individual.
3) Live frivolously. If there is one thing that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older it is that money and material goods do not determine your future or your self-worth and they especially are not roadblocks to explore your wanderlust. Living frivolously will teach you a lot about yourself.  You will become more self-sufficient than ever, you will appreciate the little things and you will find the beauty in the world around you, rather than in material goods. If you want to travel, pinch those pennies, research, create a budget and believe that you can do it!
4) Be uncomfortable. As one of my favorite quote says, “You cannot learn from the experiences you are not having,” Mike Vance former dean of Disney University.  Push yourself into uncomfortable scenarios to find how you will react and challenge yourself to find the best outcome.  It’s okay to be afraid, but you have to conquer those fears and explore the challenge.  Surround yourself with new individuals, in a foreign place with unfamiliar food and customs.  You will learn more about yourself than you could have ever imagined. 5) Go out and find your wanderlust.  Wanderlust: the desire to travel.  Find your passions through self-exploration.  Discover your inner motivations before you settle. Better yet, never settle.  Don’t conform to society’s norms, find YOU and do what makes you happy.  That’s the trick to finding your happiness.
Lake Wanaka, New ZealandÂ
Spot X Surf Camp, New South Wales, AustraliaÂ