Studio 360

I Changed My Mind and I'm Really Happy: I was a single mom with a two year old when my own mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I was fairly despondent about my future, when a single mom friend said something that made a light go on. She told me that she'd never been able to leave school since her son's birth, that going to grad school was the way she could access child care. So I decided to find a graduate program that had child care. I found the City University of New York's Law School. It had child care. I took the LSAT, and I applied to the CUNY Law School. I applied ONLY to that school, and I got in. When I started law school my son was three years old. I finished law school on time, with a six year old, and passed the bar on my second try. While I started a unique poverty law network while in my last year of law school, I'm not practicing law right now, but I am working on behalf of the vulnerable elderly in New York, and I'm supporting my son, who's about to enter fourth grade. Changing my mind was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to doing it again quite soon.

I was raised at an odd intersection--child of an environmentalist botanist in a baptist community in a small Arizona town (my parents embraced evangelical Christianity despite disagreeing with much of the politics). Being a dutiful daughter and the peacekeeper of the family, I threw myself into all things Christian and truly believed I had a real living relationship with God (as the lingo goes). When I got to college, several fundamental ideas just could no longer fit into my expanded horizons.

The turning point came when I visited Darwin's house in England. I cannot tell this story to encompass the full range of emotions I felt that day without sounding hopelessly romantic. Basically, I walked through that house closely examining every single item, especially the reprints of Christians during Darwin's time spouting off inanities at the top of their lungs. Then I walked out into the intensely lovely garden. Always in the past I had felt the closest communion with God while in nature. It was like I felt wrapped by God's presence when enjoying natural beauty. I looked at Darwin's flowers. I stared at a hedge with a flower at my height for the longest time and felt stone cold. Always before I had taken God's presence utterly for granted and suddenly I felt nothing beyond the physical. It was as if God had left me in that instant.

I still search for him/her, but I don't think I will ever quite feel so enveloped again.

The theory of multiple intelligences was what empowered me to change my life - it was thrilling to hear the interview with Howard Gardner. I was studying Biology: Systems Ecology when I realized I couldn't force myself to pass chemistry. I was also doing more rock climbing than studying. When I was exposed to the theory of multiple intelligences it gave me the freedom to realize that I was visually oriented to the world, as well as kinetically. It made way more sense than trying to force myself to study something for a career. It felt so natural, when I heard complements like 'your climbing looks like a ballerina!' and I could accept as intelligence the compulsion to make things beautiful. The simple truth of it fit like a glove.

So I dropped the Bio major and went to declare an art major. Despite the skepticism of the art professor taking my application to start an art major in my Junior year of college - I had been shooting and printing my own black and white prints in the Science department's unused darkroom - and I got in.

It kinda proves the theory - that I could shoot and print my work without being taught.

So thanks Mr. Gardner - it was really fun to hear your voice and discernment.

I changed my mind about how I wanted to be seen by the world, if not by myself, in the latter part of my senior year in high school. I had been the proverbial class clown throughout grade school, intermediate and high schools, and realized that although the classmates laughed at what I did and said, they were also laughing at me. I had become the court jester, the class fool.

And it was then, in that senior year, I decided that I would have a different personality as I entered college. I assumed, from then on, an air of false dignity, the cool, detached, unmoved character who was never the fool. And although the comedic spirit was realized in different ways later in my adult life (writing and comedy club ownership), I actually had changed my mind, my persona, and my personality, as far as the world knew. Inside I was still laughing.

I grew up in a farming community, where only 3% of the population went to college (according to the census bureau), and my father, along with all his brothers, only went to 7th grade, his sisters, 8th. The expectation by the teachers was that the farm kids would never go to college, which affected how grades were awarded and the classes we were expected to take -- I took home ec and a shop classes in high school, yet I changed my mind. I didn't know what to expect or where it would lead, but I went, and went some more, graduating from law school with honors. The economic difficulties in truly doing it on your own, knowing that if you faltered, you would not receive ten dollars from your family to help, much less rent money, were difficult, but as difficult is the lack of interest and emotional support from family - none of my family ever talks to me about my work, my life, my interests becuase changing my mind came with a price. However, changing my mind was the right choice for me and I've had a better life than the cost of not changing my mind.

I have changed my mind dramatically as the result of becoming acquainted with a Muslim man. I previously knew little about Islam, and I am grateful for what I am learning about it, but the real change is in how I see myself because of how he sees me. I've always felt great pressure to try to conform to media-promoted images of idealized beauty, which lately seems to include a large measure of sexiness, even in professional dress. Being valued for my spirituality, intelligence, kindness, and charity has liberated me from the habit of looking in the mirror with dissatisfaction, seeing only imperfections. Modest dress is often seen by Westerners as repressive, but I am choosing to dress more modestly in response to my freedom from the notion that I should always be striving for the attention of men and the envy of women. I have never been happier and more at peace with myself.

I was taken with your comment that you had recently changed from a researcher to an activist. I am in the reverse process--changing from a life-time of being an activist to now being a researcher/writer. I have had to make several changes in order to do this. 1. Say to myself: "That's a great idea, let's not do it." I have to remind myself that I can't act on all my ideas. This is actually much harder than you might realize. 2.) Develop a discipline for reading. This is also harder for a former activist than you might realize because I have to sit down. I knew I needed a mentor and a structure to make the needed changes so I entered a doctorate program and will be studying theories of learning this term--your books are at the top of the list, of course. I am writing about my process and hope to develop a theory of how to change communities. In other words, I am applying my research to my experiences as an activist. This change requires me to use my mind in a different way than I ever have and to approach life differently. I am so eager to learn more. Thanks for being on the program. I welcome your response.

I was raised with a high respect for the land of my birth. The United States represented the highest ideals... justice, honesty, nobility... peace-loving, but with the strength of character to defend the weak, and to intervene to stop mass murder in less civilized societies. We were a democratic country, where all were respected as being created equal, and, being self-governing, we would always be safe and free from tyranny.

This changed in the days after I first got a computer, and was able to review the news videos from the events of 9/11/01. I became aware for the first time, that WTC7, a 47 story skyscraper, fell abruptly, straight down and intact, in the afternoon, in a manner that looked like a controlled demolition. I began to wonder why the president and NORAD were not aware of, and doing something about hijackings for such a long time, time enough for 4 planes to go off course, and 3 to hit targets. Eventually, the scales fell completely from my eyes, when I realized that the Twin Towers could not have fallen as they did, at undeterred freefall speed through the path of greater and greater resistance (as buildings are more heavily reinforced downward) without the aid of some kind of explosive or cutting agents.

Why was no one talking about this? How could the 9/11 Commission not address the obvious? What possible reason could our leaders have for suppressing the evidence? I had begun to suspect the worst...that those in high places of power in our country had no qualms about killing their own countrymen and blaming someone else for it.

So, my mind has been changed in a radical way...I no longer impute the highest ideals to my country...I see that we are no better and (hopefully!) no worse than any other human institution....I see corrupt politics and business practices, torture, and other atrocities, as shocking, but in a way, unsurprising. And I know that I can never go back.