Year off from school
may clear the head

IT really bothers me when people say that youth today lack dreams and the motivation to achieve them. Young people have many dreams but what we need is the confidence to make them real.

Our direction in life is often dictated by our parents, and this keeps us from realizing how powerful and unique we are. At some point we need to learn to fly solo and to shed the dependencies which restrain us.

I believe that one way for us to demonstrate what we can do and discover who we are is to take a year after high school. A year off provides the opportunity to pursue our dreams and to learn to live independent of our parents.

I was a junior when I decided that after graduating I'd take a year off to travel around the country. Three of my friends joined me, and for months we planned the details of our trip. We fixed up an old camper van, and by graduation, we were packed and ready to go.

We drove nearly 10,000 miles during the next months, stopping to visit our friends at various schools, trading beer for labor at a North Carolina truck-stop, and hiking in awesome national parks such as Zion and Yosemite.

We got kicked out of a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, La., were almost arrested for playing the slot machines in Vegas, feared we would get car-jacked when our van broke down in a New York ghetto, and realized again how beautiful everything can be when we reached the serenity of the Pacific Ocean. We loved life on the road.

But when our money dwindled, we stopped in Colorado for the winter season. We worked in restaurants and tuned skis to pay our bills, and enjoyed as much free skiing as we wanted. Since I had decided to go to college in Colorado I was able to claim residency as a bonus, so that I paid a lower tuition fee.

AS I look back on my experiences, I feel like I grew a lifetime in that single year. This rite of passage had challenged me to work hard for my success and bear the consequence of possible failure. I had left home a boy, but returned a man.

Perhaps most importantly though, I returned home knowing that I had realized a dream, and knowing that with intention and persistence I would be able to do it again.

I believe that we each have the power and right to be free and that we should learn how to make this freedom possible for ourselves. A year off freed me from the conventional notion that I should live my life based upon the value and standards of others. Simply because the majority views life one way, doesn't necessarily make it the best way for me.

Many of my friends took the more traditional college route, but once there, were torn between feelings of independence and of the need to stay in school to appease their parents. I know of students who partied all their free time, didn't settle on a major until their junior and senior years, and some who eventually dropped out, or flunked out, to take time off anyway.

WITHOUT question, my decision to take a year off was the best one I have made. For others, there are internship, volunteer and paid work possibilities, travel and wilderness adventures available. These opportunities offer possibilities for self-exploration before we are in a position where such exploration might jeopardize our GPAs or careers.

I think a year off holds so much potential for each of us, and if more young people took this time to follow their dreams, it would show that youth do have a vision and that they are capable of following through.

And hey, watch out world, here we come.

---

Darren Miller, 22, is taking his second year off
since finishing high school in New Hampshire. He is
currently working in the state House of Representatives
and will be a junior at the University of
Colorado-Boulder this fall.

Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
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