How Should I Make the Most Out of My Gap Year?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - All right, what do we got next?

00:00:07.720 | - All right, the next question's from Drew.

00:00:10.520 | He's in a gap year and he has a question

00:00:13.440 | on what activities he should pursue.

00:00:15.440 | - Hey, Cal, loving the show.

00:00:20.880 | I'm Drew from the Philippines

00:00:22.240 | and I'm currently in a gap year before college.

00:00:25.000 | I've applied to elite universities in the US

00:00:27.480 | and I'm pretty confident I'll get into at least one of them.

00:00:29.980 | Hopefully, but in the meantime,

00:00:32.480 | I'm trying to make the most of my time during my gap year.

00:00:35.360 | My country is still in the dying throes of the pandemic,

00:00:37.960 | so going outside is still a bit restricted.

00:00:40.660 | So I've started developing a lifelong habit

00:00:42.680 | of reading books at a more frequent level,

00:00:45.080 | averaging at least one or two nonfiction books per week

00:00:48.200 | by employing your method of making it a default activity.

00:00:51.480 | And it's been working effortlessly so far.

00:00:53.920 | I have approximately 10 months before college

00:00:57.040 | and by the end of my gap year,

00:00:58.560 | I want to come out of it becoming the best possible version

00:01:01.480 | that a 19 year old like me is capable of actualizing.

00:01:04.800 | What activities should I pursue

00:01:06.860 | and what kind of mindset should I employ going forward?

00:01:10.040 | Thanks, Cal.

00:01:10.880 | - So given that you're somewhat physically stuck,

00:01:17.400 | that's gonna change the way we think about this gap year.

00:01:20.160 | Because often gap years is built around experiences.

00:01:24.360 | You go to interesting places, you meet interesting people,

00:01:26.600 | which I think is really important,

00:01:27.740 | but now you're gonna be limited there.

00:01:29.760 | I think what I'm gonna advise

00:01:31.320 | is that you actually develop a curriculum.

00:01:34.640 | So instead of just, which by the way is great,

00:01:37.760 | but instead of just encountering and reading a lot of books,

00:01:40.760 | let's have a curriculum that has maybe three goals

00:01:45.760 | that you're gonna make consistent effort towards.

00:01:49.240 | So you might have a curriculum for reading.

00:01:52.640 | I'm trying to get through these particular books

00:01:55.280 | and I'm gonna read these secondary sources

00:01:57.360 | about each of these books

00:01:58.220 | to try to fill in a particular subject matter

00:02:01.380 | that I wanna know a lot about.

00:02:03.200 | And I don't care about the details so much here

00:02:05.500 | as it is just doing some sort

00:02:06.940 | of consistent intellectual exploration.

00:02:11.140 | I mean, for example, I'll give you an example from my life.

00:02:14.440 | When I first came down to Washington, DC

00:02:17.680 | to take a professorship at Georgetown,

00:02:19.580 | this is before we had kids,

00:02:20.740 | so I had a lot of free time on my hand.

00:02:22.900 | My wife worked a normal person job.

00:02:24.660 | Professorship's not a normal job.

00:02:26.780 | So she had to actually go to work for normal hours

00:02:28.660 | and I didn't, I was a first year professor.

00:02:31.260 | I did a self-imposed curriculum.

00:02:32.940 | I had come across this book,

00:02:34.400 | a book of philosophy called "All Things Shining"

00:02:38.220 | by Dreyfus and Kelly.

00:02:39.820 | And it was an interesting book.

00:02:40.820 | It went back through the classics

00:02:43.460 | and extracted ideas from the classics

00:02:45.700 | about the sacred and finding meaning in life.

00:02:48.780 | We actually talked about this recently

00:02:50.280 | in my appearance on the Tim Ferriss podcast.

00:02:52.020 | I guess Tim tried to read it

00:02:53.520 | and he didn't actually like it much.

00:02:56.180 | And the reason Tim didn't like it

00:02:57.260 | is he said, "I didn't know all the references.

00:02:58.860 | "I hadn't read Aeschylus.

00:03:00.360 | "I hadn't read Dante."

00:03:01.700 | And so what I did, I said, "Here's what I'm gonna do.

00:03:03.820 | "I'm gonna use 'All Things Shining'

00:03:05.200 | "'cause it's talking about all these books

00:03:06.640 | "and drawing interesting lessons about them.

00:03:08.300 | "And as it gets to each of those books

00:03:10.280 | "that it references, I'm gonna stop and read that."

00:03:13.520 | So I'm gonna go, I started with "The Odyssey"

00:03:16.180 | because they started with the classical heroic Greeks

00:03:18.600 | and I read "The Odyssey" and then I read "Aeschylus"

00:03:20.980 | and then I read "Dante" and I read "Augustine."

00:03:25.420 | And so I followed this book

00:03:28.300 | and I would read the things

00:03:30.540 | and then read them talk about it,

00:03:31.540 | then read the next things and read what they talked about.

00:03:33.100 | And it was like an organized curriculum

00:03:34.500 | and it was actually really interesting to go through these.

00:03:36.620 | And the book ended up with David Foster Wallace.

00:03:38.460 | So we went from Homer to David Foster Wallace.

00:03:41.140 | And there was an organized reflection here

00:03:44.660 | as the book went on.

00:03:46.380 | So do something like that,

00:03:47.340 | just to get in the habit of I can on myself

00:03:49.900 | autonomously dive into an intellectual pool

00:03:53.460 | and make sense of it just because I want to.

00:03:55.780 | And there's a lot of different topics you can do this on.

00:03:58.120 | If you wanna steer this,

00:03:59.300 | you might consider subscribing to the great courses

00:04:02.460 | and let one of the great courses,

00:04:04.500 | you pick a topic from there and let that course,

00:04:06.100 | actually watch the lectures and then read the books,

00:04:07.860 | like actually follow a great course

00:04:09.220 | if you want a little bit more structure.

00:04:11.080 | So that should be part of your curriculum,

00:04:12.280 | some sort of focused intellectual exploration

00:04:15.280 | where you learn to just love doing

00:04:16.440 | focused intellectual explorations.

00:04:18.140 | The second thing in your curriculum

00:04:20.980 | should have you building or creating something.

00:04:23.340 | And I don't know if it's physical, if it's digital,

00:04:27.580 | if it's written, if it's code,

00:04:28.980 | but it's just you're building and honing a skill

00:04:31.060 | and creating things,

00:04:32.380 | making intentions manifest concretely in the world,

00:04:34.660 | just to get in the habit while you have the time

00:04:38.020 | of developing a skill and creating things,

00:04:39.940 | being able to actually add new things into the world.

00:04:42.340 | I think that's quite fulfilling.

00:04:44.020 | And then the third part of the curriculum I would add

00:04:46.300 | is something physical.

00:04:49.300 | Get in really good shape.

00:04:50.600 | Not that you need to be in really good shape

00:04:52.940 | to go to college in America,

00:04:54.700 | but just that it's an outlet for the energy.

00:04:58.780 | It will calm intellectual anxieties

00:05:01.040 | and it's self-mastery and efficacy.

00:05:03.500 | I'm the type of guy that can structure my time

00:05:05.460 | and get after it.

00:05:06.280 | I'm getting in really good shape.

00:05:07.120 | It just makes you feel like you have control

00:05:09.500 | over your own life so that when you get there,

00:05:12.140 | when you get to college, you have all this confidence.

00:05:15.900 | I can control my life and create something here

00:05:17.760 | that's really interesting.

00:05:19.780 | And I'm not at just the whims of,

00:05:22.300 | oh my God, my classes and I'm stressed

00:05:24.120 | and I'm just up drinking all night.

00:05:25.340 | You feel like you're actually in control.

00:05:26.500 | So I would do those three things.

00:05:27.780 | That's my three-part curriculum I would suggest

00:05:29.940 | for your semi-homebound gap year.

00:05:34.320 | The fourth thing I'm gonna say,

00:05:35.160 | which is not part of the curriculum,

00:05:36.180 | but this is just a substrate.

00:05:38.300 | You need to socialize and connect as much

00:05:40.620 | as the Philippine pandemic restrictions allow.

00:05:44.020 | You need to connect to other people.

00:05:45.200 | You need to sacrifice on behalf of other people.

00:05:47.000 | You need to be a leader in your community

00:05:48.860 | and among people you know.

00:05:50.060 | That's just gonna be the foundation

00:05:51.200 | that stops you from going crazy.

00:05:53.340 | If you're allowed to see people outside,

00:05:54.420 | see people outside.

00:05:55.860 | If you're not allowed to do that,

00:05:56.820 | then do it virtually until you can.

00:06:00.320 | But as soon as you can, do that.

00:06:01.620 | Be around people, see people, communicate with people,

00:06:03.760 | help people, bring stuff to people who need help.

00:06:06.300 | Make the social aspect of your life really amplified.

00:06:10.180 | And this is not about your gap year.

00:06:12.080 | This is about you're going through a period

00:06:13.900 | of pandemic restrictions that we all went through before.

00:06:16.500 | And it's the thing that you have to push over the top

00:06:19.440 | to counteract the isolating negative impacts

00:06:22.080 | of pandemic restrictions.

00:06:25.400 | And so I just want you to see that as medicine.

00:06:28.640 | That is your, I don't wanna get anxious

00:06:30.120 | and depressed medicine for this very specific circumstance.

00:06:33.200 | It is, I'm gonna become more socially engaged

00:06:36.280 | and sacrifice more time and attention

00:06:37.760 | on behalf of other people than I ever have before in my life.

00:06:39.920 | And that's just your daily medicine.

00:06:41.360 | All right?

00:06:42.440 | So Drew, hopefully things will calm down there soon.

00:06:47.420 | Hopefully you'll find your way to a nice school soon

00:06:49.980 | and really enjoy that.

00:06:50.820 | But in the meantime, that is my prescription.

00:06:54.300 | It's kind of weird, Jesse, to imagine there's still,

00:06:57.220 | I mean, I guess it's true, but there's places

00:06:58.760 | where you're dealing with lockdown type things.

00:07:03.560 | - Yeah.

00:07:04.400 | - Yeah, I mean, I think we've been done

00:07:06.900 | with those here for a while.

00:07:07.860 | I think the populace basically just said,

00:07:10.620 | you gotta find a better way.

00:07:12.760 | You gotta find your way.

00:07:13.600 | Though, I don't know where we live.

00:07:14.680 | You see it every time you come here,

00:07:16.460 | compared to where you live.

00:07:17.820 | Montgomery County, Maryland is not exactly chill,

00:07:23.600 | chilled out about the virus.

00:07:25.520 | - Yeah, I mean, I'm in Virginia,

00:07:27.400 | but it's only seven miles away and it's different.

00:07:30.680 | - Yeah, interesting times, but hey, we can go outside.

00:07:33.560 | So I feel bad for Drew.

00:07:35.320 | - When you were doing that All Things Shining project,

00:07:38.120 | how long did it take you to do all the,

00:07:39.380 | read all the books and everything?

00:07:41.100 | - I don't remember.

00:07:43.780 | Semester maybe, more.

00:07:46.940 | I mean, I don't know if I read every one.

00:07:48.220 | Maybe I skipped a couple,

00:07:49.480 | but I just remember doing it for a lot of that academic year

00:07:53.900 | and then I do other things and I'll come back to it.

00:07:56.300 | Yeah, it's vague memory, but I have all those books still.

00:07:59.540 | And I remember, by the way, I remember so much from that,

00:08:03.020 | that it was very useful.

00:08:04.880 | Like I have all these references now

00:08:06.700 | and these understandings of all these different books.

00:08:08.300 | I know these cultural references was actually a pretty cool,

00:08:10.820 | it was a pretty cool experience actually.

00:08:12.200 | That's what I should have told Tim on the podcast.

00:08:14.160 | So Tim was saying he tried to read it,

00:08:15.760 | but found it really academic,

00:08:17.880 | which it kind of is if you haven't read the books,

00:08:20.840 | you're like, what the hell are they talking about?

00:08:22.600 | So I probably shouldn't have suggested to Tim,

00:08:24.720 | go back and try the book again,

00:08:26.940 | but read the books along with the writers.

00:08:31.060 | And so long time fans will recognize the reference

00:08:34.640 | because I talk about it in deep work.

00:08:37.160 | (upbeat music)

How Should I Make the Most Out of My Gap Year?

Chapters