Dandapani argues that accumulating experiences without structured reflection creates confusion — and that clarity comes from going deeper into fewer things rather than wider into more, drawing on Hindu philosophy to reframe the gap year as potentially counterproductive.
Transcript
if you're confused about what you want to do in life if you're not clear what the next step in your life is gaining more experiences in life doesn't necessarily mean you will have more clarity on what you should do next now I often hear parents say to their children take a gap here go travel see the world gain try and get as much experiences as you can out there so you'll have a better idea of what it is you want to do in life personally I think that's very bad advice because as a Hindu just as a side note I believe in reincarnation I could reincarnate on this planet a thousand times and still not have every experience this planet has to offer so if I took a gap here and I traveled around the world and had a whole range of experiences that's not going to help me gain Clarity what does it do it actually more than anything else confuses the Mind why does it confuse the mind because when we go out to have ex experiences we're not given proper guidelines on how to choose what experiences we have and then how to reflect on that experience and form conclusions the conclusion part of the experience is critical in organizing the subconscious so we have Clarity in what it is we want want most people go out and they have an experience and after the experience they don't really sit down and reflect did I enjoy that was that something important to me is that something I'd like to pursue more of do I want to do it again do I not want to do it again they don't so they just have an experience then go out and have another experience and go out and have another experience and they go out and have another experience and what are they doing they're accumulating experiences in the subconscious mind now your subconscious is like a hard drive like a memory bank a storehouse a warehouse of experiences memories habit patterns and a whole bunch of different things so imagine this imagine I want to create a library in my home a room that is a library every day I collect I put 20 books in my library when I put those 20 books in my library I don't index them I don't categorize them I just put 20 books in the library after a year I probably have 700 plus books plus or minus will I be able to find any book no I won't be able to find any book there'll be lots of books in my library but if I'm looking for a gardening book I'd have to sift through 700 plus books to try and find it there's no way I could find it why because I didn't categorize them index them and organize them the subconscious is no different every time you go out and you just accumulate more more and more and more experiences like you would accumulate more and more information you just clutter the subconscious mind now when you go into your subconscious to try and decide what it is you want to do how would you be able to retrieve it how can the subconscious even help you when it's not even organized all that information is just thrown into the subconscious in in unorganized uncategorized unindexed way okay and it creates confusion that's why there are more people confused today than I feel personally than ever before why because all we do now is consume information from the time we're kids we have phones kids have phones television and all we do is scroll and consume information scroll and consume information we're putting information in our heads in our subconscious but we never do the critical work of reflecting on what it is we've listened watch heard forming conclusions which is the most important part which then allows us to decide if it's something we want more of in our life or not and once we start to take that approach we start to organize our subconscious and we start to organize our subconscious the subconscious then in turn can do what it does to help us make decisions one source of confusion is overwhelming the subconscious mind and you can do that by consuming too much information or having way too many experiences in your life it is better for a parent to say to a child for example just say if my daughter loved playing the piano or she loves playing the piano then what I would say to her is take a gap here but in this Gap here why don't you go to Eastern Europe for 3 months and learn Eastern European piano playing I don't know anything about piano playing I'm just making up a example then go to China and learn a Chinese way of playing the piano for example then go here maybe to Africa and learn this style of playing the piano and then maybe go to America and learn this style of playing the piano for three months so in a year you've gone to four different places examine four different styles now my daughter's passionate about playing the piano and after she's done her Gap year of exploring different styles of playing the piano she can come back and say you know Dad I don't really like these three I mean they're okay but I really love the Eastern European way of playing the piano and that's what I want to dive deeper into and I say That's great so if you want to gain more experiences and gain more experiences within a category that you're passionate about rather than gain experiences across the board across a million completely different things pick the things that you're passionate about be curious within those things think narrow long deep silos and that's what you want to go to and each Silo is something that you're passionate about then you can explore within the category then you actually making progress in pursuing your passion and getting deeper into something that brings you a feeling of contentment a feeling of Joy feeling of being uplifted in fulfillment from just doing it rather than trying a thousand different random things none of which you really want to do but you've never given any thought about it before even doing it so go narrow and deep