I’m no stranger to gap years. I’m the kind of person who can’t be pressured to move at a pace that I don't want to. I can be unbothered like that. As far as I’ve known, I’ve been having gap years between most academic periods of my life. I find them to be good, and they have a way to just clear my mind of all the stress and negativity of the previous years, so I can embark into the future with fresh hope.
There are many who prefer to do everything as soon as possible, as if they’re being chased or they’re in a hurry. Not me though, I’m not in a hurry. I take my sweet time. This is because I’ve learned already that the purpose and meaning is in the journey itself, not the destination. It won’t matter how long it takes me to get there; what would matter is that at the end of the day, when they ask graduates to raise their hands, I’ll be one of them.
My first gap year wasn’t really voluntary. It was after my common entrance. I was making a switch from a private primary school to a public secondary school, and it was not easy at all. The process was hectic, but my Mom pulled it off. It was also the period that the NUT Lagos Chapter embarked on an indefinite strike that stretched for months, and this put a cog in the wheels for me. However, it soon ended, and I got into school. It wasn’t up to a year, but it was definitely close.
After that, everything else was voluntary. If there’s one thing about me, I’ve always been pretty chill about my school life. I saw education as something to be taken on with a calm head and clear mind, and without too much pressure. If I wasn’t enjoying it, then I had no business doing it. I’ve always talked about how I had a great time in my secondary school, and I guess it was because I didn’t put so much pressure on myself to get top grades.
I simply cracked the code, and I went with it. While my mates were going for extra lessons, I simply went home, reading books by J.D. Robb and Steven King. I for one, never understood the idea of having classes in school, then going for extra lessons after school, and during the holidays, still getting summer coaches. They never appealed to me. And for this, while my mates were preparing to write WAEC, NECO, and GCE, I was only preparing for WAEC.
At first, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, but the minute a teacher made it clear that they all serve the same purpose and having a good WAEC result would immediately make the other two results obsolete for me, I just chose to focus more on my WAEC. And that worked for me. I wrote and passed it in flying colors. Some of my classmates immediately started trying to get into the university, but not me. Where was I rushing to?
I spent one full year at home! Not working or anything, just eating Mummy’s food and chilling with the guys, enjoying my status as a secondary school leaver. The next year, I began actively trying to get into school by writing JAMB. But despite having a good result, it didn’t work out. I tried again the next year, and by then, I was even more enlightened about it, and I was ready to go to school. I got the admission then, and thus started my schooling.
After I graduated from ND, I returned to Lagos for my one-year IT, but I wasn’t planning to have the one-year IT, I was planning to have two!! I wanted to fully enjoy my holiday before I returned to the toxicity that was my school. By this time, many of my classmates were now finalists in their various universities, and even my coursemates in ND had gone back after one year. I didn’t really care.
I returned to school after two years, and I saw myself through the entire thing. And when that was over, I came home. And now, the next in line for me is NYSC, and I’m honestly not too psyched about it. I’ve already stayed close to one year at home, and I’ve fully rested. If it touches me, I just might go for it this year or next. Don’t know yet.
The thing is, I’m not one of those who just want to do everything at once so they can “relax”. You don’t relax at the end, because it never ends. After school, you work, and work, and work. And once you have a family, it gets even worse. So, you grab your rest times when you can. I guess that’s why I rarely crash out, because I always take some time to rest and strategize.
But then, career-wise, I’ve not really done gap years. Ever since I picked up the pen, I’ve been writing, and I’ve not stopped or looked back. I love writing as a hobby. However, taking a gap year in professional writing, I did it during my final year, and I’m trying to reintegrate myself back into life, merging it with everything else that I’m doing at the moment. It’s not easy.
Gap years are a good thing. Besides giving you an opportunity to relax, they also give you space to look back, scrutinize your past, and also come up with ways to make the future better and easier for you. Without this, you’ll simply be pushing forward and running on fumes. That’s how people get stressed out, develop ulcers, or even have migraines.
Sometimes, all that your body needs is just to take some time out of your busy schedule to touch small grass!
