What Makes You The Person You Are Today?

For a jillion years, I've watched ol' Dave Letterman come up with his Top Ten lists. In the dorm, my friend Betsy and I would have a lite beer and eat saltines with peanut butter and watch Dave after an evening of studying and laundry. A friend encouraged me to think about creating a top ten list of my own. But what would it be? Favorite books and authors? Favorite music? Best ideas for a second date? My bucket list of travel places?

As I thought about the theme of my top ten list, I was cleaning up my house. A total stranger walking into my home would instantly know that I have teenagers by the stuff in the room. J-14 magazines, X-Box controllers, school-issued mac books lying around, backpacks and earbuds, wild tie-dyed socks... it used to be small and sturdy board books, crayons and paper, dolls and stuffed animals...

Into the teen years, my kids are working on figuring out who they are as individuals - all the while society, their friends, classmates, and popular culture are having an influence on who the adult version of themselves will be. And it got me thinking, what were the influences in my life that made me the adult I am today? Think beyond the "givens" of your parents, your school, teachers...we can all claim those. Dig a little deeper into stuff others may not think of when they see you.

In no particular order whatsoever... (Typical.)

• Watergate. I was in the third grade, the time when kids begin to recognize the influences of government, their sense of fairness and how people in positions of authority treat others. I think it sparked an interest in government and politics that led me to study political science and history in college. Kinda proud that my kids had a "West Wing" marathon on Netflix this summer.

• Monty Python (The boys still dig that I am nerdy in this way.)

• My friends who lived in my town and went to my school. 

• My friends who lived at least 100 miles away and we only met at church retreats and camps and through hours of long-distance phone calls and 20-page handwritten letters. Still my closest and dearest sister friends.

• Public television, particularly Masterpiece Theater and Mystery - without which I might not have been interested in going on a Thomas Hardy jag and reading some of the most depressing novels ever written. They are amazing stories and slices of history. Classic novels, for me, are pretty extraordinary. 

• Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegon" monologues that glorified my growing up in a Swedish-American family on the edge of the prairie.

• My stepdad Phil who taught me how to be an excellent spectator of sports and how to understand football and basketball. It has paid off in spades with a lifelong personal interest as well as being able to share this with my teenage son. I'm the one who is bursting with pride to take my kids to games at my alma mater and it is a tradition that Phil would have dearly loved to see continue. I think of him every time John and I walk through the opening into Kinnick.

• Opportunities to travel as a kid and to leave my community where I was raised in The Time Before the Internet. 

• My church. Yeah, I know I mentioned this before, but being raised in a denomination that fostered thinking as well as faith, gave me the tools to walk my own spiritual path without judging others' paths, and to have a community that truly gave a damn about people beyond themselves was deeply influential for me. When I left my little rural town on my own without my parents for the first time, it was 1979. I went on a trip with a bunch of teenagers to the national convention of our denomination. Our denomination made big news by being the first mainline denomination to ordain an openly gay man. As a teenager, my friends and I didn't grasp The Big Deal of it all because most of us had been raised that this was not an abomination much less a sin. I am deeply grateful for being raised in a church and a wider church that preached God's extravagant love to all, without any strings attached. 

• My college experience at the University of Iowa from 1982 to 1986 had a profound influence in my life. I suspect that is true for most people. It is typically our time to find our true selves and I know that I did. My friends at that stage of my life were about the best and most eccentric group of interesting and amazing people I could have never hand-picked. I am grateful for the oddity of Facebook that has reconnected me with many of them. 

• A sense of being a Midwesterner. With our easy going attitudes, we are well known for our sincere concern for others. When I travel or meet people from other regions of the US or other countries, they remark on my "niceness." It even impacted one of my earliest jobs. "You are too nice to be in politics," I was once told by a DC campaign consultant. I took that as a genuine compliment. Interestingly, I worked for Republicans at that time.

As I think about these things that had a tremendous influence on shaping my life today, I wonder what my kids' lists will look like. What are the experiences and people and memories they are making right now that will influence who they are becoming? What about you? What is on your list of top influences in your life that have brought you to where you are today? Something you might enjoy thinking about.

Just a word for my dear lifelong buddy Matt - Bill Bryson is YOUR author. Go pick out something he's written - for you, I'd suggest "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" and I swear you will laugh out loud throughout the entire novel. My personal favorite is "Notes from a Small Island" about his first experiences in England. You will often find his work in the travel section. I honestly laugh until I am weeping. And who doesn't need more of that?