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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, yesterday I made a really handy iphone camera mount using cardboard, duct tape, and rubber bands, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson that I wish it hadn’t taken me over 30 years to learn.
Friday Forum
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What I Learned Yesterday:
Time sure flies, doesn’t it? It’s hard for me to believe that 20 years have gone by since I graduated high school. I’ve mentioned before that I graduated from the thriving metropolis (if you use the word metropolis in the loosest way possible) of Wellston, OK in 1994. I moved to Wellston before I went into the fourth grade.
It was an odd adjustment for me. I had previously gone to school in a much larger school district and the class structure was quite a bit different. Of course, like any new kid at a school, I knew no one and had no friends. I don’t know what it was that brought us together, but I soon became friends with a kid named James, and we were pretty much best buds from then on out.
We were a small class. I can’t find my senior yearbook at the moment, but I think my graduating class was around 36 kids. My wife finds it hard to imagine what my high school experience was like. She graduated with a group of over 450. The thought of a school with that many people freaks me out a bit. Since we were such a small class, and a small school, everyone knew everyone else. Just about everyone got along with each other, even if we did really hang out. I pretty much always struggled with trying to fit in or dealing with the fact that I felt like I didn’t fit in. I never really felt like I wasn’t liked, just that I was an odd ball.
I wasn’t athletic at all. Hanging out around the jocks was really not fun for me. If I was going to get picked on by a group, it was them. The band geeks were nice, but I wasn’t in the high school band, so I didn’t really hang out with them much either. I don’t really know why, but I was never interested in the party scene. In a small town, that’s pretty much all there is to do on a Friday or Saturday night. So, as I said, I just felt out of place. I was a geek, but that was before geeks were cool. Geeks are cool now, right?
There was one kid in my class named Roy. Roy seemed to be liked by everyone. Even back in fourth grade I can remember two things about Roy that I thought were odd. Roy liked the rock band Kiss, and he also liked the Boston Celtics. I’m not sure why I thought these things were odd. The Celtics have always been popular. They won 3 championships in the 80’s including our fourth grade year.
I do remember that Roy would get teased about them from time to time, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He liked Kiss and he liked the Celtics and he was proud of it no matter what anyone else thought. I admired Roy for that. Roy and I actually hung out fairly often in junior high because we were both in band. He played saxophone and I, of course, played the sexiest instrument on the planet, the baritone. We actually performed at contests together and almost always received the highest marks possible.
Roy was also pretty athletic, but at some point I think he stopped doing sports. He wasn’t interested in it I guess. I do know that he and a few other guys formed a band. Roy played drums. He was fantastic at playing the drums. I should say that he IS fantastic at playing drums. He now drums for a rock band named London’s Dungeon.
Roy got along with the jocks and the geeks and all those in between as far as I ever noticed. Even when I was around a group and I was getting teased, Roy never joined them. I definitely noticed that. One day when we were seniors and we were talking about performing on stage, he said that he thought I would be an awesome rock singer. I have no idea why he said it. Up to that point I’d never sang in front of anyone, especially not him. But it was one of the coolest things anyone had said to me, and I’ve never forgotten it. He probably has.
It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I finally had the courage to stop caring what other people thought about the way I dress, the car I drive, the way I comb my hair, or what my hobbies are. I didn’t break out of my shell overnight, and I’m probably not completely there, but I’ve come a long way.
One of my favorite things is my car. People either love it or hate it. My wife hates it. It’s a 1984 Toyota Celica GT. It’s a goldish brown color on the outside. The inside is brown and tweed. The whole car just screams the 80’s. When I bought it 5 years ago it had 24,000 original miles. Now it has 81,000 miles and I’ve loved putting every one of them on the car. I don’t drive it as much now that I work from home, but I still get a lot of compliments on it. A few weeks ago a guy followed me into a grocery store so he could ask me about. Last week a car hop exclaimed her love of the car. My wife drives a 2000 Honda Civic. Guess how often someone comments on her car?
Here what I learned. We spend too much time caring about what other people think. Now, I’m not talking about being polite, putting the needs of others first, maintaining good hygiene, and things like that. I mean that when we make decisions based on what other people may think or say about us, we do ourselves a disservice.
Don’t be afraid to be you. If that means that you’re like everyone else, that’s great. But if it doesn’t, that’s great too.
Oh by the way, when I was at my 15 year class reunion one of the popular kids told me that they weren’t surprised by the way my life has turned out. Apparently when I was in high school they thought I was the one that seemed to always have it together. Now it just seems silly that I spent all that energy trying to fit in and worrying about what they thought about me.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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