I had a discussion recently with a horse barn buddy about one of the young lady riders who’d just graduated from high school. The topic we got into was gap years, a pause between educational marathons, a chance to try on adulthood outside the classroom.
Rather than plunge into college, our young friend wanted to wait for a time, focus on her riding, network in her chosen field, give some thought to specific skills she’d need that might better inform curricular choices and so forth. She was nonetheless being pressured to git’ er done! Start racking up credits in addition to the AP classes she’d already taken, dive in, none of this frolic and detour crap.
I am reminded of my dear oldest sister, who did not get her PhD in classics until she was 65. Though she’d met her hubby when she’d first started grad school (in her twenties), he got his Phd then, while she did not, despite wanting to. For decades, she read in her field, studied independently as time allowed, taught Latin, read some more, and when it came time to write a dissertation, she did what you’re supposed to do and what very few PhD candidates actually do: Made an original contribution to the researched knowledge in the field.
My sister, in her vast, varied, and unrelenting reading, had come across metaphors that linked distant aspects of the ancient canon. Nobody had seen those connections before, probably because they were tackling PhD theses topics without having first read whatever caught their eye for thirty years. Some of the metaphors delved into the differences between a politician and a statesmen, and lordy did they illuminate a new aspect of what those old fellows had been maundering on about.
I am convinced that had I not brought years of reading legal contracts to my writing career, I would have been treated much less respectfully by agents, editors, and publishers’ contract departments.
Many of my friends had to “put off” starting a family, but they tell me now that waiting (or being made to wait), meant the finances were a little better organized, the marriage was stronger, the children were more appreciated than would have been the case years earlier.
My daughter is closing in on a master’s degree in social work, but she’s feeling old, because she’s in her thirties rather than her twenties as she approaches this goal. Well, for three years, she taught horseback riding at a juvenile residential treatment facility, where some of the youngest patients deal with some of the biggest, most intractable diagnoses. You can bet those three years of minimum wage, “low skill” work mean she’ll bring reams more insight to her social working than will the twenty-two year old right out of college. (Though hats off to anybody tackling social work at any point in life.)
My argument here is not with stacked educational achievements–momentum has advantages too–but rather, with the assumption that assembly lines are good, success lies at the end of a straight path, and time is the enemy of a happy, meaningful, contributing life. (And for a great TED Talk on the pernicious folly of emphasizing efficiency as a society, go here.)
The best path forward is not always a straight line in foresight, though it can sometimes look like a straight line in hindsight. I didn’t start writing fiction until I was in my forties, and I think the books are better for that, and that my appreciation for the great privilege of publication is also deeper.
Have you ever rejected the assembly line? Gone on what looked like a detour or respite that turned out to be steps forward? Ever wished you’d taken a breather rather than barreled on toward the next checked box?
I’ve sent out the first batch of e-ARCs for Miss Determined, but if you’d like one, just email me at graceburrowes.com. And PS, pre-order links for Miss Dashing are live!