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#A vague dream turned into a concrete direction #Confidence and a path in cultural and arts volunteering #It became a major turning point in my life.
©Korea gapyear
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I was suddenly scared by the fact that, aside from the so-called ‘tracks’ for college students—graduate school, civil service exams, or job hunting—there was no one around me dreaming different dreams. I felt that, having lived so immersed in that environment, I was limiting my own potential. So I decided, for the first time in a while, to put the brakes on my daily life and take time to think about what I want and the direction I want to lead my life in.
-2013 Gift of Music music volunteer gap year |
When you live immersed in routine, you forget the importance of seeing the bigger picture. The elaborate life plan I made in the short months between graduating high school and entering university gradually faded as I kept commuting and drowning in assignments. My twenty-year-old promise to find ways to improve people’s quality of life through culture and the arts was forgotten and became merely a momentary passion tucked away on a shelf. Following only where my peers went, I sometimes joined contests or extracurricular activities without a clear sense of purpose, and spent hours on job-hunting sites looking for activities to fill volunteer hours.
Before I knew it, time had passed and I was a third-year student—graduation was no longer someone else’s story. I was suddenly scared by the fact that, aside from the so-called ‘tracks’ for college students—graduate school, civil service exams, or job hunting—there was no one around me dreaming different dreams. Having lived so immersed in that environment, I felt I was limiting my own possibilities. So I decided, for the first time in a while, to put the brakes on my daily routine and take time to think about what I want and the direction I want my life to take. It was then, believing that you can’t judge something without trying it yourself, that I began to look into activities in the cultural and arts fields.
©Korea gapyear
The biggest obstacle among those activities was that there weren’t many options open to non-majors like me, but I tirelessly searched the sea of information. Then I happened to find an organization called ‘Gap Year’ that offers programs for people like me who want to take a break from daily life and consider a new life direction, and there I learned about music volunteer work in which amateurs could participate. Seeing the word “music” made me so happy. I applied without a second thought and waited for the results. Perhaps thanks to my eagerness, I passed and was able to participate.
I thought that simply having the chance to volunteer through music would be enough experience, so I did not expect this volunteering to become such a major turning point in my life. As a participant with a background in a pungmul troupe, I taught samulnori (traditional percussion) to friends from the piano club to achieve our goal of presenting our country’s traditional music in the performance. I was chosen as the concert planning team leader and worked on the content for the concert to be held locally, and I even enjoyed the joy of completing a performance before hundreds of people and receiving thunderous applause. Above all, this volunteer work offered me a new direction because I encountered in concrete form the possibility that cultural and artistic volunteering I had only imagined in my head was actually possible and could be developed beyond a one-time experience into a career.
I learned for the first time that there are organizations founded with visions similar to mine, and I was able to meet people who share that sense of purpose and work for change. Visiting educational institutions and orphanages, I experienced the painful realities of developing countries firsthand, and I also saw that there are movements to instill hope in people living in those environments through culture and the arts. What I had felt was just a lonely dream turned out to be a perfectly realizable way of life.
Therefore,I can boldly say that Gap Year volunteeringwas a turning point in my life. Immersed in everyday worries and busy worrying about making a living, the week-long experience reminded me once again of the work that makes my heart race. The volunteering ended, but I gained human resources and information that can continuously point me in the direction I should go. Through them I was able to concretize a dream that had seemed vague, and I found the passion to pursue it. Soon the semester will start and I will return once more among young people worried about jobs, but I know that my dream will not be forgotten as before. Every time I remember that amazing week, the passionate beating of my heart will remind me of what I truly want.
©Korea gapyear
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