A Decade of 10Q

Now that we’re in a new decade, it’s time to look back. Thankfully, I’ve got the personal archives of 10Q to help discover what was happening in my life a decade ago. 

If you’re not familiar with 10Q, it’s a website/movement/practice where every day, for 10 days, you’re emailed a question. Ten days, ten different questions. The answers are then sent to a secure online vault. One year later, your answers are unlocked and returned and the process begins anew. 10Q is a project of Reboot, an arts and culture non-profit that reimagines and reinforces Jewish thought and traditions.

If you haven’t participated, you should. It’s free and provides a lot in terms of capturing a slice of your life in time. 

Rather than share all 10 years worth of answers — it’s 96 pages of printed text — I’m sharing answers and years chronologically. There are 10 answers for 10 questions spread across 10 years. Got it? Good. Let’s go!

2010 – Day 1: Describe a significant experience that has happened in the past year. How did it affect you? Are you grateful? Relieved? Resentful? Inspired?

The past year has been marked with subtle realizations regarding the world and myself.

Turning 25. My 25th birthday was less a celebration and more a moment of reflection with family. Thinking about the 24 years I’ve lived, what I’ve done, and where I want to go caused me more concern than celebration. Part of me finally realized that I’m not getting any younger. Another part realized that I am the only person that can cause my dreams to become a reality.

The relationship I was in ended in June after I realized we were each wasting the others time. She doesn’t want children, I do. If after a year’s time we can’t see eye-to-eye on such a crucial issue, why are we together?

In November I was given the opportunity to co-teach a film acting class. While I had considered teaching children in the past it wasn’t until I was placed in front of my students that I realized how much passion I have for sharing information that’s become second nature. I love teaching and look for more opportunities to share my passions with others.

2011 – Day 2: Is there something that you wish you had done differently this past year? Alternatively, is there something you’re especially proud of from this past year?

If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have moved out of the condo.

In late 2010 I was terrified and ashamed about the impending “foreclosure.” I reasoned that if I could be approved for a loan modification through President Obama’s Home Loan Modification Act I would have a reduced mortgage payment. With a reduced mortgage payment I would be able to rent out the condo and set the rental rate high enough to cover the mortgage and the home owner’s association fee. I began the underwriting process in November 2010. It wasn’t until June 2011 when the Wells Fargo underwriters finally reached a decision on the file.

When I initially began the underwriting process I was behind on my mortgage by a month and a half and owed the home owner’s association nearly two-thousand dollars. I turned to my parents for help. After a lengthly discussion with both Mom and Dad, they agreed to loan me $6,000 to cover my expenses. I was 25 years old.

I’m 26 now and have finally begun to repay the loan incrementally. It will likely take nine years until they’re paid back. I don’t want to ever borrow money from them again. I appreciate knowing that I can come to them with my problems, but I’m an adult now. These problems are mine.

I wish I hadn’t borrowed that money from my parents to “save” the condo that now, a year later, is now up for bid at a Sheriff’s sale.

I’m proud that I auditioned at the Twin Cities Unified Theatre Audition. For years I had put so much stress and pressure into those auditions that I just didn’t audition. Fear froze me and I refused to audition with a piece I hadn’t workshopped or felt 100% comfortable in.

Even all these months later, when I go back and think about my monologue – it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing. Next year I’d like to audition again. Perhaps do two monologues, maybe a song. Or not, I don’t know. My career depends on auditioning, so I’m gonna keep doing it…

I’m also proud that I’ve begun repaying my parents. It’s a long road ahead, but every epic journey just begins with a simple step.

2012 – Day 3: Think about a major milestone that happened with your family this past year. How has this affected you?

In mid-July shortly before 2AM I was at a bar drinking with Ryan. We were at Muddy Waters on the patio. It was a relaxed moment. My phone rang. It was my brother, Daniel. Knowing my brother there were only two reasons for his call: 1) he was driving his big-rig and needed company to stay awake, or 2) something terrible happened.

When I answered the phone call first thing I heard was my brother crying, “Mike, I need you! If I’ve ever needed you before in my life I need you now!” Something terrible happened.

At first I thought my brother had been in a car accident. He was so upset I couldn’t tell at first what the problem was.

The short story is that my brother needed his spare keys.

The long story is that my brother and his friends were camping in Wisconsin along the Apple River and after a long day of drinking frustrations escalated shortly after 11PM and he needed an exit strategy. Apparently my brother attempted to leave the campground, however, a woman climbed into the cab of his pick-up and he pushed her out.

A young man saw my brother push the woman out of the pick-up and angrily approached my brother. Then the young man’s friends gathered around my brother and my brother was feeling cornered.

Just then, the wife of the couple my brother was rooming with, told everyone to leave Daniel alone, but her husband saw his wife in the middle of all those guys and assumed my brother was getting his wife involved in a fight. So the husband started fighting with my brother.

The police were called.

The police broke up the fight and told my brother to “sleep it off” in the cab of his truck. However, they also confiscated his keys. My brother wasn’t allowed to access the cabin he paid for and wasn’t allowed to leave the campground on his own.

So he called me.

Ryan and I cabbed home from the bar. I borrowed Ryan’s car and drove to my brother’s house 40 miles west of Minneapolis, retrieved his spare set of truck keys and drove back to the Twin Cities and onward to Sommerset, Wisconsin. For more than an hour I spoke to my brother on the phone calming him down and listening to him as he vented.

It scared me to hear my brother so upset. Not just angry, but deeply saddened — like he didn’t have a friend in the whole world. Like I told him on the phone and like I know in my heart — my brother was my first friend and he will always be my best friend. We may not always get along or agree with one another, but we love each other and there isn’t much we wouldn’t do for each other.

I arrived in Wisconsin shortly after 4:30AM. We talked and he asked if I’d go get his stuff from the cabin. So I drove down to the cabin, snuck in and retrieved his most precious belongings: a cooler full of beer.

Afterward we went to a deserted Perkins. Then Daniel farted in the booth and it smelled like he shit his pants. We laughed for a long time in that empty dining room.

I love that guy.

2013 – Day 4: Describe an event in the world that has impacted you this year. How? Why?

(10Q for 2013 was not completed due to a crisis happening with a loved one in Zibo, Shandong, China.)

2014 – Day 5: Have you had any particularly spiritual experiences this past year? How has this experience affected you? “Spiritual” can be broadly defined to include secular spiritual experiences: artistic, cultural, and so forth.