carpanddoem

Then you go back to work. There's nothing wrong with taking some time off to broaden your horizons every now and then.

We might all benefit from a stipend to take a long leave for continuing education or travel every decade or so. Many innovations have sprung from the intersections of diverse cultures and fields of study.

That's all well and good, but there's always the chance that I'll get T-boned by a drunk driver or run over by a bus tomorrow.

There's probably a happy medium; virtue finds and chooses the mean, right?

Congratulations, hope you have a great time! I took an adult gap year, and it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Life in an American suburb is a series of goalposts. Every few years, a new school. Then you go to college, find yourself, and discover that a career is more of the same: every few years, a new promotion/job/grant.

When I realized that, I figured that my joints and back would be at least as ageist as my future employers, and quit. Having watched a lot of Top Gear in school, I bought a dirt bike, modified an old pickup into a mini-RV, and went on a tour of the US' forests and national parks.

It was incredible. Exploring such an enormous and diverse area presents you with a lot of new perspectives. Of course, it was a terrible financial decision which I couldn't really afford, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

As I enter my 30s and start to see my peers get seriously hurt by activities like skiing and climbing, I find myself scaling back my "see the whole world" ambitions. Maybe I played things too safe, but I'm definitely glad that I didn't stay in my rut.

Anyways, it's nice to have a chance to contemplate your place in life and society while you're still spry enough to shurg off a few falls. Even my grandmother took an ill-advised teens-20s road trip across the iron curtain. A good walkabout should be a basic human right.