Education is a necessary part of life. The ability to read, write, and solve basic math problems is often taken for granted. Although I never plan on using the quadratic formula or analyzing a Shakespearean tragedy ever again, that doesn’t invalidate the wonderful people who work tirelessly to teach me. It doesn’t change the fact that I have school to thank for at least a portion of my common sense, and my ability to think semi-critically.

I tell people that I am taking a gap year, but I dread explaining my plans to them because I know how it sounds. It sounds like I’m lazy, or stupid, but my decision makes me more self-aware than many people my age.

I’m not wasting money; I am giving myself the time and space to cultivate it. I’m not wasting time; I am allotting myself valuable life experiences. I am being smart, because I know that a future of textbooks will not increase my knowledge base. I know that a dorm room would not improve my well-being. And I know that “academic” assignments would only fill my freetime with stress, and would lead me to develop bad habits.

Life is going to lead people down an infinite number of different paths, meaning that everybody’s daily responsibilities simply cannot be accounted for. This makes quantifying the amount of work that students have to complete an anecdotal task. Memorizing lines for drama club, dribbling basketballs through the gym at practice six days a week, or flipping burgers at their part-time job doesn’t tell a student’s whole story. It’s the little things that often go unnoticed that end up snowballing into a burned out student body.

At some point, it is no longer helpful to pressure me into cramming random, filtered facts into my head for one night, to test how accurately I can regurgitate those things the next morning.

To be intelligent is not to simply be compliant. Anyone who wants to can study a list of elements in a chemistry class, but to have to prove someone’s ability to do so is ineffective and often does not align with actual ability. This should not be the determinant of what someone is capable of. Unfortunately, some people have their sense of self-worth so entangled with this external factor that they cannot differentiate between their own desires and those of others. There are so many beautiful things to experience in life, and the last thing I want to do is make myself busy with paperwork and deadlines.