By Sammy
Our lives move so fast, we don’t even get to enjoy a transition. Without this pandemic, I would have gone straight from graduating to being an 8-week camp counselor to possible going straight to Duke. I would be jumping from one experience to another, without even realizing that I’m heading into the biggest change in my life. The pandemic has forced me to slow down, given me a surplus of time to reflect and prepare. I was talking with my friend, who just came back from the hospital after almost dying in a longboarding accident on the road. He told me through his bandages, “You never know when your life can completely change, so take it slow.” I gave him some advice too: “Don’t longboard.”
Many of my other friends complain that time is moving like cement these days, but graduating seniors have been given an opportunity to transition — an opportunity to prepare ourselves for the future before plunging in, taking the time to realize our lives will really never be the same.
“You’re taking a gap year? Seriously? Don’t you want to start college? Why are you putting your life on hold?” These questions repeated themselves throughout the end of high school, as my friends tried to understand why anyone would delay the college experience even by a year. I wouldn’t back down: “College will still be there in a year…Imagine learning and living in Israel! … Will you ever be able to have an experience like this again?” After a few more of these arguments and colleges releasing their 2020-2021 plans, I had convinced 6 of my friends to join me in Israel.
I realize now, even without the pandemic, that a gap year was always the best decision. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A unique experience. Most of all, a transition. I don’t know who I’ll be in a year or how I’ll change during the gap year, but I know that I’ll grow. I think it’s important to really know who you are when you get to college, so you can’t let anyone else tell you who you are. A year in Israel is a transition that I wish everyone can take, but it feels so unnatural to many Americans. Our culture pushes on us the same general goal to success (which apparently means happiness): work hard in school, go to a good college, get a good job, make money. Delaying that process by a year doesn’t make sense to many. In other cultures, like in Israel for example, kids are not pressured to grind for a couple more points and a letter grade. Instead, they accept the reality from a young age that at 18, they’ll be putting their lives on the line for their country in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). The culture creates a different type of people, in my opinion, happier and more genuine people, without this standard path to success. People, believing that the study/work/money process is the only real path to happiness, argue that taking a gap year is putting your life on hold. But that standard success story isn’t everyone’s future, especially outside of America. Surrounded by that Israeli culture and new experiences I’ll undergo a transition. I’ll reflect on the past, but more importantly, I’ll discover what my real goals are in life, my real priorities, and who I’ll be when I enter college. That’s not putting my life on hold. If anything, that’s discovering what I’ll make out of my life.
