A little while back, I watched a video of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. reading a reflective letter he had written to his younger self. I was very moved by it, and I really liked the idea. Though I am still a relatively young man, I believe that I have learned enough over the past number of years to do something similar for myself. However, I am not merely limiting myself to one letter. Over the next year or so, I will be writing a few of these letters to myself at different ages, allowing me to reflect on my life in smaller chunks. This is the third in the series.
Letter to Jakob Duehr: to be received April 4, 2003
Dear Jakob,
Happy birthday, kid! You’ve made it to your 16th birthday. And yes, things are going to be pretty sweet. You’ve survived the past two years, and we both know it wasn’t easy. You didn’t ask for any of the hardships you’ve faced, but you’ve pushed past them and have even learned about yourself in the process. This letter should give you exactly what you need to get through the next two years. I’m only going to give you enough to take you through the end of high school.
I’m sorry, but you won’t be getting your driver’s license today. Your school district does things a little weird, and you’re still a couple days away from getting your learner’s permit. Sorry!
Aside from that disappointment, you are about to enter one of the happiest periods of your life. You left one youth group to focus solely on another, and it is probably the best decision you’ve made to this point. The friends you’ve had for years will grow even nearer and dearer to your heart. This upcoming summer you will hang out with them almost everyday. You’ll even start to get burned out with going out all the time. Don’t. Enjoy this time. Cherish this time.
You are actually only a couple days away from getting your first girlfriend. Congratulations. It won’t last long, but that’s your choice. It’ll feel nice to be cared about. Don’t get used to it. After this you will embark on a series of failed pursuits. Some blows will be cushioned softer than others. The girls you meet from church camp will be soft blows. The girls you meet from high school, not so much.
In the past the adversity you faced was not your fault. I am sorry to tell you that the adversity you will face now will be trials of your own creation. You still lack the one thing you need: confidence. This lack of confidence will cause you to do some strange things, especially from behind a computer. You will alienate yourself with a large group of people at your school because of the decisions YOU made. You will tirelessly work to correct these problems, but you will only dig deeper holes for yourself. You will fear walking through certain hallways.
Despite all that, you’ll make it through. You start to learn a little more about yourself, and you gain some maturity along the way. By mid-2004, you have a grasp of who you are and who you want to be, and you will work to become the person you want to be. 2003 and 2004 will be the two best years of the entire decade.
On a side note, I thought I’d share this with you: one night in late 2003, you randomly flip through channels and stumble upon Monday Night Raw. This rekindles a love for WWE that still exists. You wouldn’t believe how big your collection of wrestling stuff gets.
By 2005, things start to get a little tough. You learn that you can try as hard as you can but still fall just short. You’ll miss out on a couple full-ride scholarships. We both know how badly you wanted to get one of those. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It will be okay. Trust me.
So, enjoy today. Enjoy the next two years. They’ll be tough at times, but they’ll be ultimately enjoyable. Blow out those candles and buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride!
Sincerely,
You, 10 Years Later
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
26 Things I Want to Accomplish as a 26 Year Old
My life is better when I have goals in mind. If I don’t, not only do I not have anything to look forward to (which I know is a personally dangerous thing for me), but I also feel like I am wandering aimlessly. Some of them will be more challenging, while others will be a bit more whimsical. Nonetheless, in no particular order, these are the things I want 26 year old Jakob Duehr to accomplish.
1. Complete another marathon. Have enough energy to finish as strong as I start.
2. Run a sub-5:30 mile.
3. Attend another Seahawks game.
4. Attend a concert of some sort.
5. Make at least 3 new friends.
6. Go on at least 4 dates with the same person.
7. Get another tattoo.
8. Launch two new websites.
9. Start on a Masters program.
10. Continue to improve as a teacher.
11. Travel to at least two states I have never travelled to previously.
12. Reach out to old friends more often.
13. Learn how to cook a full meal.
14. Take fewer things personally.
15. Hang out in person with at least one online friend.
16. Drink more water.
17. Attend a WWE event.
18. Get tweeted at by at least 5 celebrities.
19. Complete a 5k race in less than 20 minutes.
20. Receive a medal for my age group in a 5k race.
21. Eradicate my fear of failure and rejection.
22. Limit my use of sarcasm.
23. Wear my red pants in public.
24. Write at least one chapter of a book.
25. Focus more on the present than the past or future.
26. Be better.
1. Complete another marathon. Have enough energy to finish as strong as I start.
2. Run a sub-5:30 mile.
3. Attend another Seahawks game.
4. Attend a concert of some sort.
5. Make at least 3 new friends.
6. Go on at least 4 dates with the same person.
7. Get another tattoo.
8. Launch two new websites.
9. Start on a Masters program.
10. Continue to improve as a teacher.
11. Travel to at least two states I have never travelled to previously.
12. Reach out to old friends more often.
13. Learn how to cook a full meal.
14. Take fewer things personally.
15. Hang out in person with at least one online friend.
16. Drink more water.
17. Attend a WWE event.
18. Get tweeted at by at least 5 celebrities.
19. Complete a 5k race in less than 20 minutes.
20. Receive a medal for my age group in a 5k race.
21. Eradicate my fear of failure and rejection.
22. Limit my use of sarcasm.
23. Wear my red pants in public.
24. Write at least one chapter of a book.
25. Focus more on the present than the past or future.
26. Be better.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Relevance Revisited, or Continuing Studies in Relevance
I know I covered the topic of relevance at great length in 2008 and 2009, but it is still a topic that holds near and dear to my heart, and it is a topic that I feel can be visited once again.
In my life (in the last decade at least), I haven’t given much thought or care whether I was liked or disliked. I haven’t cared whether I was admired or revered. I honestly haven’t even given much thought to how respected I am. I do, however, give thought to my relevance. Do people notice me, positively or negatively? Is what I’m doing important? Does it matter?
There’s a fairly new band that I happen to like named The Lumineers. In their song “Stubborn Love”, they sing “It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all/ The opposite of love’s indifference.” I really think they’re on to something.
I personally believe the worst words to hear are not “I hate you,” or “I wish I had never met you.” Those words, though drenched in malice, signify an emotional response between the speaker and the recipient. I have long believed that anyone who is capable of loving someone is equally as capable of hating a person, and vice versa. The emotions of love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. They are very different, but are related. No, I believe that the worst words to hear are “Who are you again?” or “You don’t matter to me” or “You’ve never mattered to me.” Those statements, even when free of malice, are cold and detached. Nobody wants to feel irrelevant or superfluous.
As I have stated on a number of occasions, most notably in my Apologia, I was part of two youth groups during my teen years. One of those youth groups I left in 2003 because I never felt like I belonged. When I look back on my time spent there, I have come to realize that there were only a small handful of times where I was actually treated badly. What was the case, though, was that I don’t think it mattered much to most people whether I was around or not. I was just around. I wasn’t well-liked, but I wasn’t hated either. I was just there. I wasn’t relevant, and I think that’s what ate at me the most.
The older I have gotten, I have been able to conquer a number of my fears and do things my younger self would have thought improbable, if not impossible. One of my greatest fears (whether real or imagined), is that one day I will come to the realization that I was far less important (both small-scale and in the grand scheme of things) than I thought I was, that others mattered to me far more than I mattered to them.
So is there a key to staying relevant, to making a difference in people’s lives, to matter as much to others as they matter to you? If there is, I have not yet found it. All I know that I can do is to live with a purpose and do purposeful things. Even if you can not maintain personal relevance, the actions you make can last long after you have gone. You cannot make someone positively care about you, but you can do a lot of positive things for a lot of people. And really, that’s what matters.
In my life (in the last decade at least), I haven’t given much thought or care whether I was liked or disliked. I haven’t cared whether I was admired or revered. I honestly haven’t even given much thought to how respected I am. I do, however, give thought to my relevance. Do people notice me, positively or negatively? Is what I’m doing important? Does it matter?
There’s a fairly new band that I happen to like named The Lumineers. In their song “Stubborn Love”, they sing “It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all/ The opposite of love’s indifference.” I really think they’re on to something.
I personally believe the worst words to hear are not “I hate you,” or “I wish I had never met you.” Those words, though drenched in malice, signify an emotional response between the speaker and the recipient. I have long believed that anyone who is capable of loving someone is equally as capable of hating a person, and vice versa. The emotions of love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. They are very different, but are related. No, I believe that the worst words to hear are “Who are you again?” or “You don’t matter to me” or “You’ve never mattered to me.” Those statements, even when free of malice, are cold and detached. Nobody wants to feel irrelevant or superfluous.
As I have stated on a number of occasions, most notably in my Apologia, I was part of two youth groups during my teen years. One of those youth groups I left in 2003 because I never felt like I belonged. When I look back on my time spent there, I have come to realize that there were only a small handful of times where I was actually treated badly. What was the case, though, was that I don’t think it mattered much to most people whether I was around or not. I was just around. I wasn’t well-liked, but I wasn’t hated either. I was just there. I wasn’t relevant, and I think that’s what ate at me the most.
The older I have gotten, I have been able to conquer a number of my fears and do things my younger self would have thought improbable, if not impossible. One of my greatest fears (whether real or imagined), is that one day I will come to the realization that I was far less important (both small-scale and in the grand scheme of things) than I thought I was, that others mattered to me far more than I mattered to them.
So is there a key to staying relevant, to making a difference in people’s lives, to matter as much to others as they matter to you? If there is, I have not yet found it. All I know that I can do is to live with a purpose and do purposeful things. Even if you can not maintain personal relevance, the actions you make can last long after you have gone. You cannot make someone positively care about you, but you can do a lot of positive things for a lot of people. And really, that’s what matters.
The Narrator and Tyler Durden Are Raging Inside Me
Warning: This blog post may contain spoilers from the previous millennium. Read at your own risk.
This past weekend I finally got around to watching Fight Club. Yes, I know I’m about thirteen years tardy to that party, but I can finally say I’ve seen it. It’s trippy, but it’s fascinating. The chemistry between Edward Norton and Brad Pitt is phenomenal. And any movie that features two singers that I greatly appreciate (Meat Loaf and 30 Seconds to Mars’ Jared Leto) is fine by me!
The purpose of the post isn’t to review or gush over the movie. Roger Ebert I am not. I want to talk about what I find to be the most interesting aspect of the film: the moment that the unnamed narrator (Norton) comes to the realization that Tyler Durden (Pitt) does not exist in reality but instead is nothing more than the manifestation of everything the narrator wishes that he could personally be. As Tyler says, “All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look… I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.” While the narrator (at the beginning of the movie at least) is safe and milquetoast, with a lack of confidence and a love for all things IKEA, Tyler Durden is brash and bold, with big ideas and a disdain for the capitalistic system and the burden of media. The narrator comes to realize that all the things Durden did both good and bad were deeds actually done by the narrator himself. He then had to make a choice of which dog inside himself he wanted to feed.
Now, most of us (hopefully) do not suffer from dissociative identity disorder, but we all have a Tyler Durden living inside of us. There is an idealized version of ourselves resting somewhere that (to varying degrees) we wish would manifest itself realistically. Each of our Tylers look different because they are each a reflection of our individually idealized selves.
So what is my Tyler Durden like? Aesthetically, not much different. I dress how I want to dress. I talk how I want to talk. Sure, I’d like a little more muscle tone, but I’m working on that. However, my Tyler is bold and confident. He does not fear rejection and failure in the same way that I do. He recognizes risks and embraces them. He sees everything as opportunity, and he never ceases to seize those opportunities.
Because something is our idealized self, does it mean that it is the best thing for us? Of course not. The narrator has to atone for the missteps of Tyler. Tyler Durden is everything the narrator wishes he could be. As we all know, sometimes the things we want are far from the best things for us. But where the narrator failed, we can succeed. We do not have to make a concrete choice between our real and ideal. Rather, because we are dynamic beings, we can choose the appropriate characteristics of our real and ideal to optimize ourselves. We are the narrators of our lives, and we are Tyler Durden, and really, that’s okay.
This past weekend I finally got around to watching Fight Club. Yes, I know I’m about thirteen years tardy to that party, but I can finally say I’ve seen it. It’s trippy, but it’s fascinating. The chemistry between Edward Norton and Brad Pitt is phenomenal. And any movie that features two singers that I greatly appreciate (Meat Loaf and 30 Seconds to Mars’ Jared Leto) is fine by me!
The purpose of the post isn’t to review or gush over the movie. Roger Ebert I am not. I want to talk about what I find to be the most interesting aspect of the film: the moment that the unnamed narrator (Norton) comes to the realization that Tyler Durden (Pitt) does not exist in reality but instead is nothing more than the manifestation of everything the narrator wishes that he could personally be. As Tyler says, “All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look… I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.” While the narrator (at the beginning of the movie at least) is safe and milquetoast, with a lack of confidence and a love for all things IKEA, Tyler Durden is brash and bold, with big ideas and a disdain for the capitalistic system and the burden of media. The narrator comes to realize that all the things Durden did both good and bad were deeds actually done by the narrator himself. He then had to make a choice of which dog inside himself he wanted to feed.
Now, most of us (hopefully) do not suffer from dissociative identity disorder, but we all have a Tyler Durden living inside of us. There is an idealized version of ourselves resting somewhere that (to varying degrees) we wish would manifest itself realistically. Each of our Tylers look different because they are each a reflection of our individually idealized selves.
So what is my Tyler Durden like? Aesthetically, not much different. I dress how I want to dress. I talk how I want to talk. Sure, I’d like a little more muscle tone, but I’m working on that. However, my Tyler is bold and confident. He does not fear rejection and failure in the same way that I do. He recognizes risks and embraces them. He sees everything as opportunity, and he never ceases to seize those opportunities.
Because something is our idealized self, does it mean that it is the best thing for us? Of course not. The narrator has to atone for the missteps of Tyler. Tyler Durden is everything the narrator wishes he could be. As we all know, sometimes the things we want are far from the best things for us. But where the narrator failed, we can succeed. We do not have to make a concrete choice between our real and ideal. Rather, because we are dynamic beings, we can choose the appropriate characteristics of our real and ideal to optimize ourselves. We are the narrators of our lives, and we are Tyler Durden, and really, that’s okay.
25 Firsts as a 25 Year Old
25 Firsts as a 25 Year Old
The past year was a very long year. I feel like I aged 10 years in 365 days. It wasn’t that the year was bad, but it was quite draining. I accomplished a number of things, and many of them were first time occurrences. I’ll have a couple other birthday related posts soon, but here are 25 things I did for the first time while a 25 year old.
1. Completed a marathon
2. Ran a sub-6 minute mile
3. Finished in the top 100 of a 900 person race
4. Went on a vacation by myself
5. Travelled west of the Central Time Zone
6. Set foot on an NFL field
7. Attended an NFL game (in a different stadium than the field I walked on)
8. Broke up a fight singlehandedly.
9. Obtained first full-time teaching job
10. Was laid off from a job
11. Was brought back for said job within 24 hours
12. Asked out a coworker
13. Met people from GameFAQs
14. Spent time with Stickam friends in person
15. Interviewed for a job via webcam
16. Got the best vocal score in the world on a song on Rock Band
17. Viewed Seattle from the top of the Space Needle
18. Won a contest held by a band
19. Was punched so hard by Buttons that she drew blood
20. Climbed the highest “peak” of Illinois
21. Ate doughnuts in Portland, Oregon
22. Spent the entirety of my time as a 25 year old WITHOUT seeing two of my closest friends
23. Coordinated a class presentation for an assembly
24. Dunked a basketball while wearing dress clothes
25. Felt old
Now I know some of these things were ridiculous, but they were firsts. Not all first time events have to be profound. Some of these events likely will never happen again. Some hopefully will. Stay tuned to see what I hope to accomplish as a 26 year old.
The past year was a very long year. I feel like I aged 10 years in 365 days. It wasn’t that the year was bad, but it was quite draining. I accomplished a number of things, and many of them were first time occurrences. I’ll have a couple other birthday related posts soon, but here are 25 things I did for the first time while a 25 year old.
1. Completed a marathon
2. Ran a sub-6 minute mile
3. Finished in the top 100 of a 900 person race
4. Went on a vacation by myself
5. Travelled west of the Central Time Zone
6. Set foot on an NFL field
7. Attended an NFL game (in a different stadium than the field I walked on)
8. Broke up a fight singlehandedly.
9. Obtained first full-time teaching job
10. Was laid off from a job
11. Was brought back for said job within 24 hours
12. Asked out a coworker
13. Met people from GameFAQs
14. Spent time with Stickam friends in person
15. Interviewed for a job via webcam
16. Got the best vocal score in the world on a song on Rock Band
17. Viewed Seattle from the top of the Space Needle
18. Won a contest held by a band
19. Was punched so hard by Buttons that she drew blood
20. Climbed the highest “peak” of Illinois
21. Ate doughnuts in Portland, Oregon
22. Spent the entirety of my time as a 25 year old WITHOUT seeing two of my closest friends
23. Coordinated a class presentation for an assembly
24. Dunked a basketball while wearing dress clothes
25. Felt old
Now I know some of these things were ridiculous, but they were firsts. Not all first time events have to be profound. Some of these events likely will never happen again. Some hopefully will. Stay tuned to see what I hope to accomplish as a 26 year old.
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