The REAL gap year

I recently finished what will most likely be one of the most grueling exam experiences of my life. The dreaded exam by all bitter accountants - the UFE. The exam itself is over 3 days, 13 hours in total. To prepare for this is a zap to your ego as well as your wallet over a 3 month period. No work, your only sole purpose in life is to study the crap out of this exam. 

As accountants, it makes sense as we love to overcomplicate and make everything into a process. As outsiders, this seems like an obscured process to prove your ability to conquer stress and put yourself in a simulation setting of an exam that makes absolutely no sense. You just know it's another one of the exams after an extensive process of preparation. I haven't even gotten to the bottom of this where the experience is also 2 years in the making. In western Canada, you are required to go through 5 online modules which including the completion of weekly online assignments with a weeding out test at the end for each. Then, at the end you get a "mock" UFE exam (which I had to re-take this year which set me back 1 year in the process) which you need to pass to grant you passage to the actual, final one. Do you have a headache yet listening to this? 

The point is, as of 3 days ago, I wrote my final test and will be waiting patiently for 2.5 more months to get the final result. The experience itself was nice because all you had to do for 8 hours of the day was to study. This was your job and it didn't matter how you did or whether you wanted to ditch out on Fridays to go enjoy the sun. In some ways this sounds amazing yes?? WRONG. For every waking second outside of the 8 hours you are finding ways to "relieve" your stress by working out, going out, making a conscious decision to not think about this dreadful exam that has been teeming over your shoulders for the past 2 (for me, 3) years. Everyday you need to be ready for the battle ground. This exam is not technical meaning it is about wit, gut and the ability to keep your mind clear. For someone who was brought up in a household of accountants, worrying was the constant course of life so this self-defeating exam was one of the most difficult challenges I have had to face from an academic standpoint. In addition, my bruised ego from failing the mock exam a year ago was also something to contend with. 

I am glad to say the process is over and whatever happens will happen. There is nothing else that could have been done and that was my main goal and realization from the entire summer. The interesting thing was after the initial euphoria of celebration wore off, I began to feel slightly depressed. Without work and studying, what exactly was my purpose each day? Also, what would I blame my angry, cranky and indecisive attitude on now? I have always thought about the whole articling process as an extension of university where only a handful of people KNEW they wanted to be in this field. The rest of us weren't that lucky because we went along with the flow of the next step which university provided us. I do not (ask me again November 30th) regret the experience though as it gave me a buffer to think about the next step. The trouble is that the next step is here and I'm terrified but excited at the same time. 

At the end of University or even high school many people take time off to pursue their gap year (the year of transition between one year to the next where you stop to think about who you want to be and what you want to do). Up until now I was not in the position to pursue this. It was essentially blasphemy for a single female asian child to even think about not going to University to take off and travel the world. So I didn't and I followed the trend of taking an articling job at a reputable Big 4. I remember back then one of my friends posted an article about delayed happiness on his Facebook page where it talks about young professionals not pursuing what their actual desires and dreams were but they settled on what was comfortable. At the time I agreed with him but I kept going regardless. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs is: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." Now that I look back on it he was so right. The experiences I had only shaped me into being the bolder person I never would have known if I didn't follow the path. You need to look forward. Although something may suck it is building up to something. I don't know what, but I have this gap year to find out. 

Here's to the next step...