Taking a gap year does not mean abandoning your goals. It means strengthening your ability to pursue them. It allows for reflection, growth and, perhaps most importantly, recovery. When you return — whether to school or another path — you do so with clarity rather than exhaustion.

The world will not end just because a rapper dislikes cats, and if you are really offended by Timothée Chalamet’s comments, support your local opera and ballet.

When we allow ourselves to be useless, we’re going against the idea that the value of us as living beings is tied to our output, our bank accounts or our GPA. We give our brains a chance to rest, and more importantly, we give our minds a chance to catch up to our bodies. We remind ourselves that we are human beings, not human doings.

Criticisms directed at TPUSA accuse the organization of “provocation” or creating a “spectacle.” These claims are reinforced by short viral clips rather than engagement with the organization’s actual ideologies. When judgements form this way, people risk oversimplifying complex viewpoints and reducing TPUSA and its supporters to an out-of-context viral clip.

Baylor University will host a stop on the campus tour of Turning Point USA, a national political organization that is known for staging confrontational political events at universities. While supporters say these events at universities promote free speech and bring conservative ideas onto campus, but Baylor students should be asking a deeper question: are these tours actually to foster dialogue, or are they designed to turn universities into a stage for political theatre?

A great opportunity to serve is within a church community. In 1 Peter 4:10, Christians are called to “serve others.” But if a church says “no, you cannot serve because you have to take part in a believer’s baptism,” then some may lose a chance to carry out the very thing they are called to do.