Midlife Might Just Be the Perfect Time for a Gap Year

Did you miss your chance to take a gap year while you were young? Or you did and want to do it all over again? It’s not to late! A midlife gap year has many advantages.

Conventionally, a gap year functions as a bookend. The young may take an extended period to travel either before or after their college years. But always before getting serious about career and family. Much, much later, with the nest is empty and career over, you might treat yourself to a bucket list scribbling-out party as a reward for crossing the finish line.

But midlife?

While on our gap year, I turned forty. Liuan turned 35. We had three little boys. It was a challenging time to push the pause button. But I would argue that it was the perfect moment in life to do so.

A Gap Year at Midlife is Hard!

But why is it always bookend? Why not a chapter in the middle? Should college kids and retirees have all the fun?

Well, I can give you a whole list of reasons why. Career, school, money. Are you just supposed to leave your house empty? Will the car start after sitting idle for so long? Who’s going to feed the cats?

The fact is, the stakes are so high. You are in the process of building something. (To what end is a separate question.) You’ve probably gotten a promotion or two. That felt pretty good, at least for a moment. Will you be throwing it all away? You’re probably in the middle of a mortgage. You probably have some savings, but nowhere near enough to retire on. Will you set yourself back?

Then there is the social aspect. Somewhere in your life, you are probably perceived as indispensable. Are you letting people down?

Sure, some people will envy you for your decision—like a few friends at work. But others will think you’re a nutball whackjob—like your parents, and also your friends at work.

So now the question is, why would you even bother?

You Are Probably Taking Yourself Too Seriously

At work, I’ve observed a conversion that every new employee undergoes. The late-starters may take a couple years to get there, but it can happen in as short as a few months. It’s hard to describe but easy to spot. They’re no longer up for grabbing lunch, too much to do. They carry themselves with urgency and purpose. When the clock strikes five, they no longer make an abrupt exit. Not even on a Friday. They leave vacation days on the table. The mood shifts from deferential and open-minded to determined, opinionated, and always a bit annoyed.

In a word, they have become indispensable.

I must have gone through that conversion as well. There was once a time when I played guitar in coffee shops, made friends with newly arrived immigrants and dreamed crazy dreams to make the world a better place. Then, for more than a decade, I inhabited that converted, efficient, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-while-I-get-things-done, indispensable personality. I benefited from it. I’m still benefiting. But it came at a cost. Namely, it cost my sense of self and my ability to sleep.

I’m not sure what I was more scared of. Watching the house of cards collapse due to my absence or finding out that the house of cards didn’t actually need me to stand. As it turns out, the latter was true. My coworkers, friends and family continued their activities—apparently just fine—without me. Don’t think you’re any different.

If this idea causes you to wince, here’s a better way to think about it. Your participation is valuable. In fact, it’s a privilege to have an outlet to contribute your skills and be rewarded for it. But it’s also a relief to know that other people can fill any gap you leave. You are not the only person keeping the ship afloat.

If you think you have an indispensability complex, a gap year is the cure.

Preparing for Retirement

Even if you concede that society will not crumble if you lose signal while hiking in Patagonia, there’s still that paycheck to be considered.

When Liuan and I started planning our gap year, our finances were healthy, but retirement was nowhere near in the bag. We had no secret source of passive income. What would happen when I quit my job and the money spigot stopped flowing? How we solved that is a subject for another post. Suffice it to say, we had to accept a healthy dose of risk and uncertainty.

But money, important as it is, doesn’t guarantee a happy retirement. In fact, many experience retirement as disorienting. Even those who retire young. Harvard Professor Mihir Desai points this out about those who pursue high income, high stress careers in order to save quickly and then live out their ideal life: “What it gets wrong is, you spend 15 years at the hedge fund, you’re going to be a different person. You don’t just go work and make a lot of money, you go work and you become a different person.”

A gap year is a sort of “mini-retirement.” As such, you’ll get to preview the freedom, but also the feeling of being adrift, that comes with a life unencumbered by work. It might not be what you think it is. You might not be who you think you are, even if you were once that person.

Benefits of Being in the Middle

With that in mind, there is a Goldilocks quality to taking a gap year in midlife.

You are young enough to handle the substandard mattresses, long-haul bus rides, and rugged hikes. But you’re old enough to appreciate the contrast between a life full of responsibilities and this period of extravagant leisure.

A space opens up between the years of taking care of infants and toddlers and looking after aging parents. Unbeknownst to us, that space turned out to be as narrow as the span of our gap year. So do not tarry!

Even though I’ve painted it as a risk to career and finances, there is an upside. You will necessarily become more resilient financially. You’ll get better at taking risks. In closing one door, you’ll find there are other doors to walk through. And unless God himself came to you in a dream and dictated your career path, the path you’re on is probably due for a shake up. You are wiser and more skilled than in your youth, and there is still time for a course correction.

Is It Right For You?

I don’t want to give the impression that quitting your job and traveling around South America is for everybody. I could see this piece being understood as something I’m trying to convince you to do. As if it’s one more thing you must achieve or you’ll miss out on a full life. Not the message I was intending. We are all weird, you are whatever you are, and that’s as it should be.

If traveling to far-flung lands where people don’t speak native English sounds overwhelming, then just read about others doing it (here if you’d like). And if quitting your job to travel gets in the way of other priorities, like buying a house, paying down a mortgage, staying plugged in with your community, advancing in a career you love, or a million other good reasons to stay put, rest assured I pass no judgement.

But if you secretly harbor a burning desire to upend your life for some crazy dream, then I hope my message is clear. Do it! Do your homework. Prepare well so you don’t fall on your face. But do it nonetheless. If you are in those middle years, it might be now or never.

For the rest of you suffering from one or more of the issues I brought up, but not really digging the gap year idea, there’s always therapy. No shame in that.

But for goodness’ sake, take all your vacation days!