0:01

My lack of patients. I'm

0:04

learning, but like I just

0:07

boil sometimes and it's too

0:09

quick for me. Um.

0:11

So I think my lack of patients has

0:14

really affected now

0:16

that I'm thinking about it more than I realized. That's

0:19

to make a campbell. She's the production coordinator

0:21

here at How Stuff Works. Tamika

0:23

and Israel Ponts, another How Stuff worker,

0:26

joined us in the question booth to talk about the question

0:28

if you could change one thing about yourself, what would

0:30

it be? When did you first realize

0:33

that you really struggled with that? Late

0:35

last year, I did like a deep dive

0:39

with my therapist, and I

0:42

just really realized a lot

0:44

of situations I found myself in. If

0:47

I would have just had a little patience,

0:49

you know, and just taken

0:52

a time to stop and think, really

0:55

assess situations, you

0:57

know, things would have turned out a lot differently. M

1:00

hm. So yeah, yeah, late last

1:02

year. What are some things that you're

1:04

trying to do to overcome that? I

1:06

actually find

1:09

myself counting a lot. Yeah,

1:11

Like I am,

1:14

I count a lot at work, and

1:16

I'm I have a really good

1:18

friend and I'll ask him a question and I

1:20

used to say, answer my question, but he really

1:23

just sits, you know, and I'm

1:25

really learning to just sit. I don't have to answer

1:28

or do anything right away.

1:30

So I really am very conscious

1:33

about not reacting

1:36

like off the cuff right. Was there

1:38

a moment or a situation where you really noticed

1:40

it last year when you said that, was there

1:42

something that happened or um,

1:45

there was like a culmnation of a whole

1:47

lot of things, Like I was in this really

1:50

crappy relationship and

1:53

that was one of the things that just really tried

1:55

my patients. So I'm like, you know, this is just

1:57

really getting out of hand. So that's really something

2:00

I am discussed in therapy

2:02

a lot. It takes patients

2:04

to learn, you know, to

2:07

learn the patients And now

2:10

June of totally

2:14

different person from last year's

2:16

Tamika m

2:20

hm hm.

2:24

Welcome to the Question Booth. My name is Dylan Fagan

2:27

and I'm Kathleen Cillian, and

2:29

this week we're listening to more answers

2:31

to our question about changing ourselves.

2:34

We wanted to ask some people around our office about

2:36

it, and Tamika and Israel fondly

2:39

known as Izzy, we're the perfect pair. There

2:41

are two of the most helpful people here at House of

2:43

works, but their personalities are very

2:45

different. But let's call it complimentary

2:47

because they make a great team together. We'll

2:50

also be speaking with Jane Morrison in the second

2:52

half of our show. She's a Fulton County

2:54

State Court judge here in Atlanta. She's

2:57

confident in the person she's become, but it

2:59

has an always been that way, not

3:01

that it was anything that she could change.

3:04

Yes, but first let's see the rest of her interview

3:06

with Tamika and Izzy. I think mine

3:09

is the same response, but with a spin.

3:11

I think that my lack of patients has

3:14

caused by lack of

3:17

empathy and sympathy. What

3:19

I mean by that is I find it difficult

3:22

to sympathize with individuals who

3:24

are in situations that they have control over

3:26

but choose not to. And then I

3:29

find it hard to empathize for the almost

3:31

the exact same reason. I can't put myself in their

3:33

shoes because I don't see myself making those mistakes.

3:37

I find myself surrounded by

3:40

a general population of people who are

3:42

in self induced traumas, and

3:45

you can't help them all, and they don't want your help,

3:47

but to navigate and to live amongst

3:50

the masses of people in these situations

3:52

that very angry, very self absorbed,

3:54

very me me me people. As it gets

3:56

depressing after a while, and you just have to learn

3:59

how to navigate personalities and

4:01

do your best at whatever

4:03

you're doing. So you know, I have the same

4:05

answers to make it, but with those particular

4:08

emphasis. Yeah, is there a certain

4:10

situation or something that comes to mind that

4:12

you think of or just like just over all

4:15

your day to day. I would say it's most

4:17

evident in driving now.

4:19

I know Atlanta has their issues and they're becoming quickly

4:22

then the number one worst, and with

4:24

our rapid growth expansion with population

4:26

and our lack of infrastructure for

4:28

roads, this is going to get even worse. And

4:31

people drive like they feel yeah,

4:34

which just tells me when you drive around that most people

4:36

don't feel so hot and they take

4:38

it out aggressively when they drive. So that's it's

4:41

most evident. But even walking in the food court

4:43

down stairs, you can just see and I pay attention to a lot

4:45

of things, a lot of body language. You

4:47

know, they're unhappy. They tend to make others around them unhappy

4:49

and then just perpetuates, and it's

4:52

something you just have to contend with yeah, and

4:54

so how do you deal with that, like when you when

4:56

you come across it, like, how do you handle that? I

4:58

try to not have it

5:01

follow me into day two if I,

5:03

if I, if I accumulate all of this stress,

5:05

I make sure that when I wake up in the morning, I'm not

5:07

taking any of that luggage with me into day two. And as

5:10

long as I can offload it before

5:12

I get home, because it's not fair to my family for me

5:14

too, b I rate when I get home. It's not their

5:16

fault. As long as I can offload

5:18

it before I get into my personal space

5:20

and I can completely forget about it before I wake up

5:23

the next day, then that's the only way

5:25

I can cope. Okay,

5:28

now that we focus on something that we want to change,

5:31

I would love to know a quality that you really

5:33

love about yourself. Well, mine

5:35

is the opposite of Israel adore

5:38

you, But I I

5:40

have an immense sense of empathy

5:42

for people like my

5:44

son always had months. You can't

5:46

save everyone, stop crying over everyone.

5:49

It's like, I really appreciate

5:52

my ability to put myself in someone

5:55

else's position. Um.

5:58

Yeah, because it's it's rough

6:00

out here, and you know a lot of

6:02

people are going through gosh awful

6:05

things, you know, And I

6:07

think being able to to connect

6:09

with people on that level has like

6:12

fostered me a lot of opportunities to help

6:14

people, um, giving me a lot

6:16

of really awesome friendships as

6:18

well. So have you always been that

6:20

way since you're young? Since I was a little kid,

6:23

yep, always always helping

6:26

people out. My dad would yell at

6:28

me once I learned how to drive, I would like pick strangers

6:30

up and oh, you need to ride home. My Dad's like, you gotta

6:32

stop doing that. And

6:34

I literally just stopped doing that when

6:37

I moved here. Like

6:40

homeless people and it's just ridiculous.

6:42

But and I want to save every animal,

6:45

And yeah, I just don't like

6:47

seeing people suffer. I really

6:49

don't. And some people

6:52

are in that their situations by

6:54

their own doing, and then a lot of people

6:56

aren't. So you know, I feel really bad

6:58

for people who are just in crappy situations,

7:01

especially if I can help them. Yeah. I usually

7:03

never know what someone's going through until you give

7:05

a chance to listen to what they have to say

7:08

or their story. Right, So you said

7:10

you've always been that way. Was there something

7:12

like in your in your family or or

7:14

your upbringing that really instilled that to you

7:16

to be so empathetic so young. I think

7:18

my grandmother was really

7:21

my inspiration. She took in

7:24

a lot of foster kids, um.

7:26

I think, jeez, she

7:29

adopted my aunt and uncle um,

7:31

and must have had at least twenty five

7:33

foster kids, who we

7:36

all still saying, not all of them. Most

7:38

of them were still in touch with them and they're like, you

7:40

know, if Rose hadn't

7:42

taken us in, who knows where we would be.

7:44

And so just seeing her just

7:47

give her home and her food

7:49

and her time and her love just

7:51

really helped me see that. I

7:53

think that's what we're supposed to do. And so were you

7:55

guys very close? Oh yeah, My grandmother's

7:58

like she was my everything.

8:01

Literally, I would my mom

8:03

my family. We live like around the corner, but

8:06

I was always at Grandma's house. M Yeah.

8:08

She was my best friend. She passed, I

8:11

want to say, to five years ago. Yeah, but

8:13

now I cherished all

8:16

the time I had with her, and she

8:18

was an amazing woman. We'll

8:21

be right back with more from our interview with Tamika

8:23

and Ezzy after the break. M

8:38

HM, can

8:42

you think of what you love quality you love

8:44

about yourself. I don't know if

8:46

I'm the best to answer that question, because

8:48

my perception of me versus

8:51

how people see me are going to be two completely different

8:53

things, or they might be the same. I would say

8:55

that I think that one of my best qualities

8:58

would be the fact that direct

9:00

and blunt and short, and

9:03

if you have ever had conversations with me,

9:05

I don't I don't tend to elaborate when I

9:07

don't have to short and sweden

9:09

and and what I do for a living, I

9:12

take a very mathematical and logical approach

9:14

and stuff, and I'm mechanically short on

9:17

and and and it follows me in conversation.

9:19

I talked to Tamka oftentimes,

9:21

and she gets me out of my groove. And you got to

9:23

pull me away from work to get

9:26

me to open up a lot, because when

9:28

I'm in the office, i'm you know, I

9:31

was a former marine, so I take very

9:33

I take a military procession to almost everything I

9:35

do now, especially at work, and you gotta pull

9:37

me out of that situation or

9:39

at home, and I tend to loosen up a little bit and

9:41

you can see more of me. But I think I like that

9:43

quality about me and of course I'll rub

9:46

people the wrong way, and I've done that through my

9:48

entire career, my entire life. But I've

9:50

also made a lot of lifelong friends in the process.

9:52

So I for the good and the bad. It's I

9:54

think that's my best quality. So have

9:57

you always been kind of just like blunt to the point,

9:59

like even before the Marines? Or

10:02

I was shy before the Marines. I was that

10:04

guy that no one knew existed and I

10:06

had very few friends. I was just that was

10:09

my personality. And then when I joined the service, they

10:11

boy did they changed me. And

10:13

uh, right out of boot camp. My

10:16

mother was actually shocked the metamorphosis

10:18

of of of who she got

10:20

back. She remembers who she sent, but

10:23

she didn't know who returned from three months

10:25

of basic training, and it broke her heart

10:27

in a lot of ways, but she

10:30

understood it was something that I had my heart and I did

10:32

it, and it followed me. It want

10:34

some marine, always a marine, It's true. And

10:37

uh, pushing fifty years

10:39

and if my mother was here today she passed um,

10:41

she would probably say that it was the best thing

10:43

that could have happened to me because I grew up without a father.

10:46

So the Marine Corps instantly became my surrogate

10:49

dad in three months time. Um

10:51

So, they had the force a lot of information into

10:54

me in a very small period of time. And

10:56

I kind of liked the way that felt. I liked

10:58

the power they gave need to

11:00

open up and to be direct and to instruct

11:03

and I never let that go to this day.

11:05

What made you want to go into the Marines?

11:08

That's another really funny story. We have enough

11:10

time for that. But the truth is, at a high

11:12

school after graduation, I really didn't have

11:14

any immediate plans. And this is God

11:17

bless my mom. She saw

11:19

a recruiter walking down the street in his dress

11:21

blues uniform and she whistled and said,

11:24

over here, I got one, and

11:28

here I am. I mean, I did a little research

11:31

and it ended up being the service I wanted to get into.

11:33

It was just and I loved everything about what

11:35

the Marine Corps and being the smallest unit

11:37

and being under the President's thumb

11:39

at all times. I wanted to be part of that.

11:42

And uh, yeah, that's what

11:44

that's what I did. I'm

11:48

learning that patience

11:51

and empathy kind of go hand

11:53

in hand. Um

11:56

So I try to after

11:58

I count if that doesn't work. I try to put myself,

12:01

you know, in the person's shoes,

12:04

um or

12:06

I just walk away. And I literally I've

12:08

told a couple of people I'm gonna walk away right

12:10

now and when I come back,

12:12

we can finish this. But yeah,

12:15

I've definitely walked away from situations.

12:18

I would say, take

12:21

care of you, And

12:23

what I mean by that is if if you don't have your

12:26

own peace of mind, and you don't have your own happiness

12:28

and your own health, you can't be any good to anyone else.

12:31

So you're going to get stressed from all different

12:33

angles, from family, from work, from friends, from

12:35

strangers. But if your health

12:38

isn't the number one focus, you're not going to be

12:40

around to disappoint them in the future. You've

12:42

got to take care of you spiritually, emotionally,

12:45

and physically, and just try to enjoy

12:47

yourself. I mean, we're not on this planet

12:49

very long, so don't let others

12:51

influence you in a way that's going to affect your long term

12:53

health. I

12:58

know you guys are both parent I hear

13:01

constantly from my parents that having

13:03

children gave them taught them patients,

13:06

because it's like the ultimate test of patients

13:08

when you have children, absolutely, And I tell

13:10

my my son just turned twenty one, and I

13:13

said to him the other day, I was like, I wish

13:16

I were this parent throughout

13:18

your entire you know, because

13:20

I've always he's the person I've had

13:22

the most patients with um.

13:25

But especially I

13:27

turned forty five last year, I'm

13:29

at that point where it's like, it's

13:32

not that serious. I'm not going to stress myself

13:34

out, and I really wish

13:36

I were this parent, you

13:39

know. But you definitely need

13:41

patients when dealing with little

13:44

ones or even bigger ones.

13:47

But it's part of the journey. I think it

13:49

really is. And I think just

13:52

overall, once you hit like your mid

13:54

forties, like you just have

13:56

such a different perspective on life

13:59

and of the things that

14:01

we fuss about are like so trivial.

14:03

So it's like, you know, whatever,

14:07

you either walk away or you deal with it and just leave

14:09

it alone. So and again that's

14:11

really helping me with my patients. I

14:14

think now. Unfortunately, I probably

14:16

have less patience than I went when I was a younger

14:18

dad. I have three daughters,

14:21

and when I was a younger dad, I had

14:23

infinite amounts of patients and nothing got

14:25

to me. But at this stage of my life and

14:28

I'm forty nine years old. At this stage of my life,

14:30

it's different. I think it's an age thing

14:32

too. I think to me, it's got something here. I

14:34

think it's an agent. Before I didn't really think

14:36

much about it. I was just a dad, and I did the dad things,

14:39

the everyday things, and hey, you know, I was filling

14:41

the role. But I really didn't have a instruction

14:43

because once again I grew up without a father. So

14:45

I was just winging it. And

14:48

then now I don't know. I just feel

14:50

that that little beautiful little girl of mine,

14:52

three years old, shout out to

14:54

Hannah. Something in my mind tells

14:56

me, you know what, she's fifty genetic

14:58

matter of me. Therefore she should be inheriting

15:02

all of my knowledge. And it doesn't work

15:04

like that. She's not a little, you know, a little computer,

15:06

and since I work on computers all day, I think it

15:09

inherits no. No, children have to be taught,

15:11

and teaching children takes off

15:14

a lot of a lot of patients. And sometimes I have to

15:16

sit down and say, you know what, she's three,

15:20

show her, instruct her parent and her. I

15:22

have probably less patients than before, but I'm smarter

15:25

now, so I know I got to sit back

15:27

and take an end to try and realize who

15:29

she is and what she needs from me before

15:31

it's because they grew up so fast. We'll

15:40

have our interview with Judge Jane Morrison after

15:42

another quick break. M

15:59

M. And we're back. Thanks

16:01

for joining us, and we were glad to

16:04

be able to sit down with Jane Morrison recently.

16:06

She's an Atlanta judge and openly

16:09

gay. She joined us in the booth

16:11

to talk about how there are some things you

16:13

just can't and shouldn't change. Yeah,

16:15

and we wanted to talk to someone who had a good bit of life

16:17

experience, someone who had seen few points

16:20

on social issues change and who had also found

16:22

confidence inside of themselves as that happened.

16:24

We wanted to do this because so many of our participants

16:26

last week were teenagers in college students, and

16:29

sometimes it's good to hear from someone who's a

16:31

little bit older than yourself. I'm

16:33

not sure that at this age, and I had the benefit

16:36

now of fifty four years, I would change

16:39

anything. Of course, we'd all like to

16:41

be a little thinner, a little more

16:43

fit, more attentive daughter,

16:46

you know, things like that. But um,

16:48

as far as who I am,

16:50

I really wouldn't want to change much now.

16:53

And there's certainly have been other periods in my life

16:55

where I might have been encouraged to change

16:57

some things. And that's where I think at

16:59

younger ages you feel social pressure a little

17:01

bit more to try to conform. I

17:04

think of a couple examples

17:06

in my own life. Of course, always

17:08

a little bit gender nonconforming.

17:11

In my life, I wanted to be

17:13

doing some things that weren't perhaps traditionally

17:15

what girls did. So I was in Brownies

17:19

and we were encouraged to do

17:22

baking and cooking and things like that, and I wanted to

17:24

do woodworking. But I never wanted

17:26

to change the fact that I was a girl. I

17:28

just wanted to change what I could do.

17:30

But when I figured out that I was gay,

17:32

that was something that was not really encouraged

17:34

back in the day. This was back

17:37

in the late seventies and

17:39

early eighties, and uh,

17:41

the concern was that I wouldn't fit in.

17:44

My parents, of course, were concerned about safety,

17:46

you know, you'll be a social outcast. At that point.

17:49

My mother was concerned I would be actually a criminal,

17:51

which is really kind of frightening, but that was the state

17:53

of the law at that point in time, and I knew that

17:56

that was not right, that that was

17:58

unfair. But I also knew that I

18:00

couldn't change that about me. So even if

18:02

I wanted to change it, I couldn't

18:04

have. So, as it turns

18:06

out, those are some of the things that have made

18:09

me uniquely me. So

18:11

I didn't try to change it. I

18:13

tried to change the world instead. UM.

18:16

Yeah, I think it's really interesting too

18:18

that you knew right away

18:21

inside you just that's something that couldn't

18:23

be changed. Yeah. It's funny because,

18:26

um, I think I might have perhaps

18:28

wanted it to be changeable,

18:31

but I realized that it wasn't. I remember

18:33

seeing, Um I was growing

18:35

up in New England, Um,

18:37

and I always wanted to go to school in Boston. And

18:40

there was a picture I saw somewhere, maybe

18:42

on a calendar or cocktail

18:44

napkin or something sort of a hokey picture of

18:46

people walking on cobblestone

18:49

or brick streets in Back Bay,

18:51

and it was pictures of couples holding

18:53

hands and they were young men

18:56

and women, probably supposed to be college

18:58

age. And I thought, wow, um,

19:01

you know, I will never have that life. Uh,

19:06

and it was kind of sad that I would never fit that

19:09

sort of perfect little yuppie, preppy

19:11

boyfriend girlfriend scenario. But

19:14

I was like, Okay, well it's going to look

19:16

different for me, but there's no

19:18

way I can change myself to fit into that little

19:20

picture. I don't know how I knew that I couldn't

19:22

change myself, but I just knew. You just

19:25

knew. I just knew you could just feel inside

19:28

um. But people are encouraged to change a lot

19:30

of pressures on people to change another thing about myself

19:32

personally, my hair started turning gray

19:35

when I was really young. I started turning gray when

19:37

I was like thirteen, And oftentimes

19:39

people are encouraged men and mostly women

19:41

to dye their hair they don't want to look old. But

19:43

I was just sort of like, this is just who I

19:45

am. So I never dyed my hair and now

19:48

I have white hair and it just fits who

19:50

I am. I sort of grew into it. That's not as

19:52

significant as you know, sexual orientation

19:54

or something like that, but it's still something that a

19:56

society that we're constantly told that we should

19:59

change, right, we should change how we look, we should

20:01

change how we think. Sometimes

20:03

even that's that's scary. People

20:05

tell you to change how you think. I

20:10

just like the idea of not changing

20:13

yourself, but changing the perception. I

20:15

think that that's something that when

20:17

you're younger it can be hard to

20:19

realize. I think also that when

20:22

you're younger, you may not realize how

20:24

valuable those individual

20:26

differences that you have are. I

20:28

don't know, it's kind of like the whole you know,

20:31

Spider Man, Superman, whatever. You have these little

20:33

superpowers, but you don't yet have

20:35

the ability to open your cape and

20:37

fly with them, which as you get older, you

20:39

realize, hey, this is who I

20:42

am, and I have somehow

20:44

developed the the space, the

20:47

autonomy, the

20:49

confidence to use your superpowers.

20:52

Do you feel like as time

20:54

has gone on that more superpowers are

20:56

continually revealed to yourself. I'm

21:00

I'm still trying to learn how to fly. One

21:03

does grow more confident sometimes

21:05

in a in a career, in a in a job.

21:08

It takes a while to settle in and to realize

21:10

what you're comfortable doing. With a friend. Sometimes

21:13

you talk all the time as you're first getting to know each other,

21:15

and then you realize that you can be comfortable

21:17

being quiet, Maybe being

21:19

quite a superpower I don't know, okay,

21:23

So I would also love to know a

21:25

quality that you love about yourself. I

21:27

like being brave. I like that about myself.

21:30

Um, whether it's brave and dressing a little

21:32

differently than other people, or maybe it's brave.

21:35

You see something that's wrong and you step

21:37

forward and say, you know, can I

21:39

help you fix that? What

21:42

can I do to stop whatever

21:44

is going on that is wrong? Um?

21:47

Standing up for things? Have you

21:49

always been braver? Has that come with

21:51

your age and more confidence? I

21:53

like to think I've always been brave. I felt

21:55

like to think I always will be. And you

21:59

have to be brave and have to live your own life. Life

22:02

is fabulous. There are so many great choices we can

22:04

make, so many things, we can do, things

22:06

we have access to. You have to be brave enough to make choices

22:09

that are right for you, whatever it is, choosing

22:11

a path that's that's right for you going

22:13

into a little bit of your career. Did

22:16

you have to be brave when you ran putting

22:19

yourself out into the public domain

22:21

to run for office. It's not to be considered

22:23

lightly, but it's

22:26

a really rewarding experience. And

22:28

when lose or draw I knew they were

22:30

going to be positive aspects of it. So

22:33

I knew that I would meet new people, that

22:35

I would get to have an opportunity

22:38

that's uniquely an American

22:40

opportunity. Not every country

22:43

allows people to run for office. Um.

22:45

Not every country allows women to run for office.

22:48

Uh. Certainly not every country or every

22:50

part of the country or every municipality

22:53

would elect an outgay person. So it

22:56

was really sort of a unique moment in history

22:58

and in location, um that allowed

23:01

me to do that. And it was great

23:03

and and yeah, it took being brave to

23:05

say I'll do it. Am

23:10

I happy with the choices that I've made and the

23:13

path that I've chosen, Yes,

23:15

very much. So. I've walked

23:17

myself to a place with other

23:20

people and the support of others and whatnot,

23:22

but I've ended up on a very nice walk

23:24

in the woods. It's gotten me to a very nice place

23:27

that I want to be at. This

23:41

week's interviews reinforced the idea for me

23:44

that you can learn to love things about yourself

23:46

and if you're uncertain, there are things you can do to

23:49

help take a step back. If he wants in a

23:51

while to let things follow you into day, to talk

23:53

to a therapist. Find your own path.

23:56

There's no right answer, but like

23:58

many people who came into the booth, you

24:00

might find that the thing you want to change about

24:03

yourself is really something that you love.

24:07

M hm

24:17

m m m. Hey

24:21

tell us what you think. Share your stories with us.

24:23

We love getting your emails. You can send

24:25

them to the Question Booth at House to Forks dot com.

24:28

We Question Underscore Booth on Twitter and

24:30

the Question Booth on Instagram. Yeah,

24:32

and visit us in the booth. We're here

24:34

in Atlanta at Pont City Market twelve

24:37

to five pm Friday through Sunday.

24:39

Kathleen and I wrote the script, I did the music,

24:42

and the two of us produced the show. And the special

24:44

part is you are listeners and

24:46

participants. Next week we'll be

24:48

listening to the answers to the question what

24:51

is your greatest fear? But until

24:53

then, see you in the Question Booth