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Focus only on your own growth.
GapYear is a time for growth and happiness.
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34th GapperKim Hyun-doo (Geonkuk Youth)
A total of 4 years and 5 months of gap year
A gap year spent traveling the country with 'coffee beans' and a 'truck'.
I wish I had a dream.,I wish I could live my way for just one year.
Whenever I encounter an event (I consider such events life events or turning points), I tend to go for a walk.
When I wanted to take a gap year, I thought about it while walking in Jirisan.A dream for meI wish I had a dream.But I couldn't shape my life with just that thought. So I decided.I wanted to live my way for exactly one year.But that didn't work out. A life of thirty years is not easily reshaped or changed in a single year.
A boy who adapted to the life given to him too early.
I distinctly remember writing 'comedian' as my dream in my student record until the second year of middle school.Butmiddle3fromwhat to saywhether I wrote what dream whether I dreamed memory at all comes do not.middle3when my mother battling an illness was.at that time since then thing seems. ideals who dreamed boyreality encountered that's what happened.
and1time mother passed away the boy always that way I lived. Just to me given life adapted itis(polite suffix). At the same time given life within such thoughts I thought.
With Dad together beautiful a family let's build.And that hopewas a dream that thinking I lived. Thus life accepted the boy turning thirty right around the cornerwas approaching when, suddenly his father even was sent to heaven.
A thirty-year-old in South Korea decides to take a gap year.
Without considering the preparation process for the gap year, he decided to quit his job and gave himself exactly one year of temporary time. After quitting his job1as more than a year began to pass, friends It's madness to hold on to me.They started asking whether I was at least eating properly and getting by.The older folks asked me again if I was doing well.
At that time I had this thought.I'm doing well,Why is everyone asking whether I'm doing well with concern and reproach?.Thirty,And I realized that the ages after that carry this meaning in South Korea.I'm at the age when I should be earning a salary at work and building a good family.
Year after year... that's how I went about finding my life.
After I quit my job and lived while listening to people's worries and concerns,in a book I happened to read, there was a story about hand‑drip coffeebeing sold at a street stall. I thought, 'This is it!'.A coffee truck together with hand‑drip coffee—let's build one and start traveling.That's what I thought.
I planned that trip to last a year..However,whenever I tried to stop, I felt a sense of regret..Those stories I couldn't have encountered at school or at work..Through travel I met countless people, and I began to crave the time spent quietly reading the books called 'people'..So I thought, 'Just six months, or a few more months,' and then hit the road with the coffee truck2years and a half of traveling..
The world I encountered during the journey (the coffee truck) was "people."
Traveling by coffee truckwhile doing so.I never dreamed I would receive this much attention from people.. Actually, through my coffee travels, someday the countryside where I live(hometown)I wanted to build a small cafe there and create a space to share life with good people..
So I took the coffee truck and, at first, 1year, I went down to Jeju Island to camp and brew coffee 100I began traveling to well over 100 cafes.. And during those times, I began sharing my daily life with people..
The world I used to be tangled up in and the world I saw from my travels (in the coffee truck) were very different.(coffee truck)The world seen from within it was very different.. The world I encountered on my travels"Person”was. At some point, as I traveled among people and looked at myself, I began to reflect on my inner wounds and at the same time started to feel hope, That beginning changed my attitude and gaze toward others.
I read countless books through my travels. Those books brought many changes to my life. I could always read those books wherever I traveled. A book more valuable than any bestseller, it was precisely the book about people. Even while reading countless printed books, I gained and encountered many things, What is certain is that a book about a person contains the story of that person's life.
I discovered more about myself during the five-year gap year.
If there is one truth I can speak with a clear tone about my life,that I met and learned through thirty years of life before leaving on my travelsThat there are more facets of "me"—Kim Hyun-doo—that I discovered during the five years of travel than the "me" I knew before.In terms of physical time, it may be difficult for five years to surpass thirty years,but I think we should reflect on whether we are not giving ourselves as much time as we need to truly know ourselves.
Do you perhaps know others better than you know yourself?
The greatest gain from my gap year is
having myself.
knowing myself.
More than anything else, it is learning to love myself and meeting the parts of me I did not know.
People think they know themselves, but I don't believe there are many in this era who truly know, love, and connect with themselves..
From what I see, the current era (youth) is entirely focused on studying others. Everyone wants to be a mentor(in other words, a leader)They want to become one and seem to be volunteering to be mentees first. Because of that...ourMaybe, rather than becoming aware of ourselves, we want to know others more than ourselves, and by becoming mentees and simply entrusting our lives to the fashions and currents of the times, aren't we just giving our lives away?
#A word to young people embarking on a gap year:The world is a great place to find warmth, more than it appears.
If you're preparing for a gap year,that the world is a great place to encounter warmth.It's true. I only realized it after setting out. I found that there are far more warm and kind places in the world than the cold, harsh areas adults talk about.I hope you become a traveler who travels to meet people. ^^!
Recommendations and submissions for '100 Gap Years' are always welcome. Please email Marketing Manager Da-young Choi (choi@koreagapyear.com)! |