My gap year: A Retrospective

There comes a point in every young persons life where you have to make some decisions about what you're actually going to do with your life. 

Uni? Tech? Work? Travel? Nothing???

The red pill, or the blue pill. The first major crossroads in my life. Who knew such a seemingly straightforward decision could have so many consequences??

I am a planner. I like to know exactly what I'm doing. So when the time came to plan my future I already knew exactly what I was going to do, I was going to go to England. Work in a boarding school and live it up in the school holidays, from Berlin to Budapest I was going to see it all, do it all, and love every minute of it. 

I guess the first slight flaw in my plan was when I didn't get a gap placement. That completely threw me into chaos, and should have alerted me of things to come. However, I wasn't deterred. I mean, how hard is it to get a well-paid job (flexible for traveling of course) in london, right? I mean, I have no experience, but i'm enthusiastic, and that's all that counts.... right??!

Apparently not.

I worked crappy minimum wage jobs, was yelled at by drunk men, made sandwiches for pervy builders, and worked 75 hours a week cleaning other peoples shit and fishing used condoms out of toilets. And I still could barely afford to pay my rent let alone fund travels to far off exotic places. So while my friends were sunning themselves in Morocco and discovering the pyramids of Giza I was stuck in grey old England, dreaming of sunny weather and excitement.

I guess my GAP year was a bit different.  But would I change anything??? No way in hell. It changed me in so many positive ways and all my experiences outweighed the minimal crap I had to go through. Of course there had been times where I've wished that i'd been able to do the 'conventional' gap year i'd planned but doing it this way really made me a better person. I've learnt not to stress the small stuff, I can't control everything and don't want to. Plus, sometimes the most rewarding experiences can come from cock-ups. It also made me you can't rely on others to create your own success -having an aptitude for something doesn't equal automatic success which has given me loads more drive to make something of myself. I want to have a life full of passion and I want to live to work, not work to live.

So now i'm off to Uni, three years of hard slog. I would much rather be traveling but I know I need grab this opportunity while it's still around. I'll be nearly 23 when Uni is done with, plenty of time to travel and immerse myself in other people's cultures.

All i'm focusing on now is getting over the post travel slump!!