March 14 - 180 Degrees

It was the gun debate that really set me on a path to questioning every single one of my firmly held beliefs.

Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you normally don’t.

One of my favorite questions to ask someone when I’m interviewing them is, “What’s something you have changed your mind about?”

I’ve changed my mind about so much—the first and most obvious was deciding to quit drinking and smoking weed. I was committed to that lifestyle for life and doubled down on it even harder after the first time I went to rehab. What’s funny about this is that doing drugs and drinking was a 180 from my original stance at age 12 which was that getting drunk and high was for losers. I remember writing a letter to a friend saying something along those lines and I think I was getting drunk for the first time before she even received my letter.

We become what we mock in my experience.

I’ve changed my mind about marriage. After a failed first marriage, I swore it off for good. Yet I fell in love and it’s remarkable how quickly you’ll change your mind about things when you fall in love.

I wanted kids when I was young. Then I didn’t want kids in my late teens and twenties. Then I wanted them but wasn’t in a relationship. Then told myself I didn’t want them again. Then got married to my current husband and wanted them again. And had one—who is currently refusing to sleep.

It was the gun debate that really set me on a path to questioning every single one of my firmly held beliefs. My father is very anti-gun and I grew up in a household where there was mental illness and guns and those two things definitely don’t and should not mix. Add school shootings to that and I stood confidently on the “2nd amendment wasn’t written when there were AR-15s” side of the debate. 

When I was writing for Playboy, there was a school shooting and I started mouthing off about guns and what I thought about them. My mostly male audience at the time was quick to school me about my ignorance. I asked them to write me their thoughts about the gun debate and they emailed me long, thoughtful essays. It was through reading these essays that I realized how truly uninformed my opinion on guns was. I didn’t know how to shoot one. I didn’t know how to get one or what the laws were in order to do so. I didn’t know jack shit and yet I was squawking about it like I did.

Some of the things I’ve changed my view on are just a product of getting older. I’m much squishier on abortion than I was when I was a younger for a whole host of reasons. Some of it is being open to new information. Surrogacy was something I never gave a second thought about and the more I learn, the more horrific it seems. Also becoming a mother and seeing how much she needs me has made me consider the ramifications of making a baby specifically to take it away from their mom in another light.

The older I am, the less I feel certain about what I know. I’ve been so wrong about so much; and I’ve also been so certain about things that I’m now uncertain about—I don’t really trust my opinions. I’m not always sure about where I land on something, either, a trait that makes me seem like a wishy-washy fence sitter, and, fair enough.