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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, the highest bungee jump available in the United States is at Crooked River Gorge in Oregon and stands 300 feet above the water, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
I’m not sure if it’s still a thing that schools do because neither of my kids did it, but when I was in high school the seniors got to go on a senior trip shortly before graduation. There wasn’t a lot to do in our small town of a thousand people so a trip to almost anywhere would have been exciting. For as many years as I was aware of it, each senior class had been taking the same trip, which was to Branson, MO.
Each of my brothers had gone there with their class and it was a given that my class would be going too. And so we did. I don’t recall why, but some of the kids in my class were upset with the school administration about the trip and were determined to not have a good time. But as far as my friends and I were concerned, we were going to enjoy the trip as much as possible.
Having seen my two brothers go on the trip each of the previous two years, I knew what to expect and that there was plenty of fun to be had. Once we completed the four and a half hour drive, we checked into our resort and settled in. While I didn’t know exactly how things would play out, I knew that during the next few days, we’d have time to spend at the lake, shop, eat, go to a show, and enjoy the local theme park, Silver Dollar City. On the way home, we’d stop by Springfield and shop at Bass Pro Shops, which was the only location in the country at that time.
My daughter has told me a couple of times that I’ve had a glow up since high school which I always take as a great compliment. I’m just shy of 6 feet tall and when I graduated high school I weighed less than 150 pounds. I was a super skinny nerdy kid with no athletic skill and the social skills to match. I was smart but not nearly the smartest kid in the class. My family didn’t have money and I didn’t have the right last name to be popular. I was just average. I had my friend group, but I wasn’t even remotely close to being one of the popular kids.
That was not the case for my step-brother, Jason, who was one year older than me. He was tall and athletic. He had a boyish grin and a charm that could land him any girl he wanted. He did well academically and he was the life of the parties each weekend. When we had a school-wide pep rally before a football or basketball game, he was the guy on the microphone hyping up the student body.
There was a lot about Jason that I envied. I wish I had his charm with girls and his charisma. I wish I had his athleticism. I wish I had his friends. I wish I had his popularity. I saw my senior trip as a way to change my stars.
There was one other thing that I knew to expect on the senior trip that Jason had told me about. At some point the chaperones would take us to a shopping center and turn us loose. At that shopping center was not only a lot of shops and restaurants, but there was also a bungee jumping tower. So I decided that I would use the bungee jumping tower to impress my classmates and it would be enough to vault me into the popularity stratosphere for the last few weeks of high school.
Sure enough, shortly after we arrived we were all loaded up and taken to go shopping. By this time I’d already discussed the jump with my best friends James and Charles. I’m not sure if their motivations were anything like mine, but we’d all agreed to take the plunge. So as we were en route to the shopping center, I began telling all of my other classmates about the bungee jump. I told them how James, Charles, and I were going to go there immediately after we arrived, and I encouraged each of them to hang out and watch us jump.
Much to my disappointment, many of them seemed unimpressed and uninterested. However, several of them indicated that they’d stick around and watch. Surprisingly, the chaperones parked right next to the tower! It was perfect. As we unloaded I hyped it up more and again asked them to stick around for a few minutes to watch us jump.
The three of us headed inside and it did not go as I expected. I expected that we’d plop down some money, they’d take us to the top of the tower, put us in a harness, attach the cord and we’d jump. I thought the whole thing would take 15 or 20 minutes. Instead, once inside we had to sign a legal waiver, watch a video, and go through a training and safety lesson. Then we were each put into a harness. Only after that were we taken outside to the tower where we had to climb seven stories of stairs to get to the top.
I don’t know how much time had elapsed but I do know that when I got to the top and looked down at the parking lot below, nearly everyone was gone. The only people still watching were the people that were part of our friend group. Not a single one of the popular kids was still there.
I was disappointed but not surprised. Charles, James, and I looked at each other with excitement and reaffirmed our desire to trust our fate to the bundle of rubber bands being held by the attendant. I stepped up first and approached the ledge. The bungee cord was attached, the attendant gave me some last minute instructions, and woosh! In a moment I was recoiling and bouncing at the end of the giant rubber band. Seconds later I was lowered into the safety airbag and detached from the cord. In the blink of an eye, it was over. I watched from the ground as James and Charles each made the jump as well.
Here’s what I learned.
There’s a reason I thought that bungee jumping would excite my classmates and make me popular. When Jason was on his senior trip the year before, he and some of his friends decided to jump. He told me the story of how when he got to the top of the tower, the entire class was standing there watching them. When they returned to school, he and his friends were being talked about in class because of how cool it was that they bungee jumped. So to me, there was no reason why I couldn’t expect the same result.
Except that’s not what happened at all. I wasn’t Jason. I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t the standard bearer for what was cool, therefore, no one cared. I should have realized this. I’d already had several experiences of me saying or doing the exact same thing as the cool kids only to be mocked or laughed at instead of being considered cool. I was a fool to think this would be any different.
When my daughter tells me I’ve had a glow up since high school, I think she’s only referring to my physical appearance. I’ve used that term around people before and they weren’t familiar with it. In case that describes you, a glow up is a positive transformation or significant change in someone’s appearance, confidence, or overall lifestyle, essentially implying they’ve become a better version of themselves and are now “glowing” due to this positive shift; it’s often used to describe someone who looks more attractive, healthier, or more self-assured than before.
I’ve certainly put on weight since I was in high school so maybe that’s why she feels the way she does, but I do agree that I’ve had a glow up. For me, the biggest transformation has come in my mindset. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m around certain people, I still sometimes try and impress them. But that’s pretty rare nowadays. I’ve walked away from those encounters feeling like a fool enough times that I’ve stopped caring what other people think.
A wise person once said that fools buy things they don’t want with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like. This is the adult version of bungee jumping to try and be like your step-brother.
However, it’s not all bad. To be honest, I’m so very glad that I chose to bungee jump that day and it has very little to do with the fact that it taught me this lesson. While my motivation for jumping that day was shallow and misplaced, my decision to recruit my friends to do it with me was not a mistake. The memory I made with those guys is one that will last a lifetime.
That day was one of the last ones the three of us had together before we graduated and went our separate ways. I still keep in touch with James more often than Charles, and we still occasionally talk about that day we took the plunge. And I’m not going to lie. I do like the occasion where it comes up in conversations with other people and I get to brag that I once bungee jumped.
So then what’s the point of today’s story? It’s simple. Stop basing your decisions on what you hope or perceive to be the opinions of people who don’t even care about you. Base your decisions on those closest to you and put your focus on those people. Sometimes the change in focus will end up leading you to the same spot, but at least you’ll have gotten there for the right reasons and with the right people by your side.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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