Gap Year – A lesson for kids and the rest of us

Life is not a race; it is a journey to be savored and enjoyed.

I served a full-time Mormon mission when I was 21. After 2 months of language and missionary training, I lived in Mongolia for 16 months. While there, I learned more of the language, and lived and worked among the locals. I celebrated the local festivals in the locals homes with their families, taught English in their schools, and did missionary work. It was a pivotal experience in my life.

Now when I travel, I’m always jealous of the missionaries who serve in the area I’m visiting because they really get to know the people and culture of a place, where as I am just a tourist, visiting for the day.

I’ve raised my kids in the Mormon faith, but have never pushed serving a mission. I do, however tell them that if they are not going to serve a mission that they should take a “gap year” that has an emphasis on service, not just fun.

I learned so much about myself during this time far away from my family and life at home. Time in the real world is invaluable. I learned how to treat people, I was not very nice to my family as a teenager. I learned real study habits. I learned how service benefits the giver and the receiver.

I think there can be some fear in American society that if our kids don’t go straight to college after high school, and the best college they can at that, they will lose their one opportunity at an awesome career trajectory. I feel this is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) at its worst, I feel that we are serving our kids a big fat serving of FOMO with these practices.

There is more than one path to success in life.

Young men in the Mormon faith are asked to serve 2 years in the mission field. I have heard some Mormon moms wonder if this 2 year delay in starting college gives their husbands and sons a disadventage in career development. I don’t think this is the case. 

I believe that taking a year or two as an 18 year old to find out who you are and what you believe can only lead to great things, and it flies hard in the face of FOMO. I think the best colleges in the country will benefit from having students filled with curiosity and confidence to explore and question rather than little soldiers who have made it through the system but are filled with fear and only know how to follow one track to where we think they want to go.