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"Tell us a little about yourself, Mr. Lengstorf."
I've always hated that question. It's a trick. It's a way to profile the unsuspecting applicant, size up a new acquaintance, to allow the poor sap to paint himself into a corner trying to fluff up his personality.
I will always think that I'm awesome. That's how my personality works. If I didn't believe that I was smart enough, motivated enough, capable enough to not only make it in life, but to excel, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning. I need to believe I have a fighting chance to achieve greatness in one form or another.
And I do. I really, truly do believe that somewhere inside my skull is a switch, and when that switch gets hit, I breathe genius.
This isn't to say that I'm not insecure about things. I'm terminally self-conscious about my weight and my hair loss. I make too many excuses about being busy or tired to make any great strides with my music. I don't own a suit, and it kills me a little more each day.
I've spent most of my life recovering from awkwardness. As anyone I knew growing up will attest to, I changed my identity more often than my shirt when I was a teenager, looking for the one that "fit" better. I was socially stunted, lonely, angry at no one and everyone, and bored to the point of being self-destructive.
I wish I knew what saved me from that spiral. I wish I had a crystal clear memory of the singular event that saved me from myself and set me toward happiness, confidence, and a calmness that allows me to take things in stride. I don't have that memory, though. There wasn't a flash-of-light-and-I-knew moment. But I have some theories.
My parents might have failed to raise the upstanding Catholic gentleman they'd hoped for, but they did manage to instill a few values into me. I grew up in my father's shadow, watching him learning everything he had time to study, from software engineering to carpentry to homemade tofu. I watched my mom reading a book every couple of days and trying out new projects at every turn. I don't know if I realized it, but I started to fear stagnation. If I wasn't learning, I was wasting time. I was imbued with permanent curiosity and the constant reminder that I could never know everything, and therefore will never run out of things to learn.
My close friend Nate has been a huge inspiration to me, proving that there is no such thing as too young, too inexperienced, or, most importantly, too hungry. Watching him rise to worldwide fame has kept me in check, reminding me that I don't work hard enough.
Dropping out of college may sound like a step backward for most people, but for me it was the stimulus to start making progress, lest I start looking like the guy who couldn't hack it and just moved back into his parents' house to die. Shortly after leaving school in Denver, I locked myself in an office in my folks' basement with a few hundred dollars' worth of programming books and started learning how to build websites. This was in early 2004. Ever since then I've been striving to learn more, rebuilding old projects to make them more lightweight and portable, tackling new projects with a resolve that springs from my eternal fear of letting myself down, constantly trying to prove to myself that I didn't drop out - I just skipped ahead a few years to the fun part.
With everything I've learned, everything I am, and everything I keep telling myself I'll be someday soon, I can face the morning sun with a smile and say, "Maybe not today, you son of a bitch, but soon. Soon, you'll rise and set for me."