“Do We Choose Responsibility?” featuring Jason Flamm

This episode features Jason Flamm, one of Campfire’s Fellows. Jason Flamm as he provides his answer to the Season 19 question, “Do We Choose Responsibility?”. A Fellow’s Campfire can best be described as TED without the data, The Moth but interactive, and a sermon but without the religion. You can learn more about Jason Flamm on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/jason-flamm/.

The Campfire Fellows go through rigorous training and coaching provided by Campfire Faculty so they can share their wisdom through story for you. Our Fellows are the people next to you at stoplights or walking by on the street. These Fellows apply or are nominated by people like you, who know interesting and introspective people with some wisdom to share. The Fellows go through a unique process with our team to discover a wealth of wisdom inside themselves and then are trained on how to share the origin stories of their wisdom. 

This episode was originally performed in September 2018, produced by Andrew Warshauer, and recorded live at The Stage at KDHX.

Transcript

Steven Harowitz:   0:11
Hello, Internet. I'm Steven Harowitz, the Director of Campfire, and you are listening to Campfire at Home. That's our way of bringing the live experience to you, whether that be listening and reflecting by yourself or experiencing it with friends. Each Campfire invites listeners into discussions about life and how we live it. Before we get too deep into Campfire at Home, I want to share a few opportunities for you to get involved beyond our live show. We offer classes and workshops on public speaking, story construction and group facilitation to answer the big questions in your life or your work. If you or your organization are interested, you can visit cmpfr.com. That's c m p f r dot com. Each Campfire Season poses a life question that is explored by our Campfire Fellows together with our audience. Let's go to The Stage at KDHX to listen to Jason's answer to the Season question, do we choose responsibility?

Jason Flamm:   1:07
Gotta love the cat calling up front. So I have a couple drinks up here, as you can see. Uh, one is to quench my thirst. The other one is Sprite. Um, thank you all so much for coming. I really, really, really appreciate it. Campfire is a great event, as Steven said. Steven does a lot of really great stuff with the local community, whether it's through comedy, whether it's through events like this, storytelling. Um and I can't speak enough about this entire process and everything that we've been fortunate enough to go through to get here today. Um, real quick, uh, if you also had intentions of walking out the back door just a couple minutes ago, go ahead and raise your hand? Just me? Okay, cool, that's fine. Uh, can, I can be alone in that. Um, so what's what's gonna happen tonight? And Steven said though, there'll be a few facilitations, and by no means you have to participate. They're really built to just find a way to connect, to be in that moment, like Steven said. Um and I'm gonna try my best to stop as saying as Steven said, uh, but as Steven said, uh, we're gonna go. We're gonna have a couple of those tonight. And the, what I hope tonight does is, I'm not interested in convincing you that my answer to the question this Season is right or that it's wrong. I'm interested in just taking a few minutes to consider some things. I think very often in life we we run out of time. We don't get a chance to just sit in a moment to think about things. And this Campfire experience has done exactly that for me and Rafaella, who is the second person next month that will be speaking on the same question. Um, spoiler alert. She has a different answer. Ah, what we've been able to do through this process is not just come up with an answer of, hey, do we choose responsibility or not? You know that that answer comes pretty quickly. Instead, it gives a chance to really think through stories, think through what does responsibility mean to us, to those around us. What did it mean 20 years ago? Growing up. What does it mean now? You know, what does it mean in the future? And what I hope tonight you guys get out of this is, over the course of the next 45 minutes, is that you get a little glimpse into that process, and I'm very anxious and excited, hence the wanting to run out the back door uh, to experience that with you tonight and before I get too deep, I should probably tell you a little bit about myself since I skipped that part. Now, uh, my name is Jason Flamm, so I am 36, 35 years old. I'll be 36 in 3 days. Um uh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to someone else's wedding as my gift. Um, I'm 30- 35 years old, and I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up in Soulard. Um, yeah. All right. Shout out for Soulard, uh, which is funny. So ah, a lot of times when I tell people I grew up in Soulard, like they're like, "Oh, man, that place is cool." It wasn't that cool back then. You know, 30 years ago, it was it was all right. Uh, it was a lot of families. A lot of, a lot of ah, more crime than it is now. Some Section 8 housing, you know, and it's it's really changed throughout the years. Uh, but I enjoyed my experience there. So I grew up in Soulard. I lived up in Baden in North City for a little while. No shout outs for Baden. That's fine. Uh, and then I I've kind of traveled all over the place. Um, these days I live out in West County with my beautiful fiancee, ah, and our our two wonderful cats, and it's it's interesting to talk about myself in that regard. So I, uh, growing up in Soulard and growing up the way I did, I did, I never expected to ever live in West County, to ever kind of be where I am today. And so what I'm going to do today is I'm gonna tell you a few stories throughout my life, ah, that this Season's question made me think of, that made me kind of process and go through um, and before ah, we get into answering the question of "Do we choose responsibility?", it only seems right that we first define what does responsibility even mean? I keep it pretty simple. To me, responsibility, responsibility simply means having to do something you don't want to do. I hear a few hmms, which is great, and that's what this process was for us. We learned very quickly that everyone has a different answer for what responsibility means to them, and so, lucky you. Ah, what I'd like to do now is that first facilitation, the first activity, and what I'd like to do is, over the next 90 seconds, and I'll time you if you're willing, uh, I'd like you to think about what does responsibility mean to you? When I say that, what's what comes to mind? What, what are the definitions? And I believe on your card, there's an area, um, where you can write that answer down if you'd like to do that. Ah, and just don't don't put too much thought into it. Just what comes to mind when you think about responsibility? So for the next 90 seconds, if you don't mind, give a few thoughts to that. And if you can write your answer down. 

Jason Flamm:   7:15
What I'd love is if anyone is willing, ah, feel free to raise your hand. And I'd love to call on you to get your answer for what responsibility means. And there's a reason for this. I'm not just picking on people or or wasting time. Ah, taking a nap. Oh, you're taking it now. Gotcha. Gotcha. I see one hand in the back. Yes. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I am failing at this. Mariah. Mariah is walking around the microphone. Give it up for Mariah.    

Audience Member:   0:00
Responsibility is dealing with the consequences of your actions yourself.   

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Great.  Thank you. With up, right next door. Nice and easy.

Audience Member:   0:00
Responsibility is doing what needs to be done regardless of if it's a pleasant task or not.   

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Great. Thank you. Down here. 

Audience Member:   0:00
Responsibility is following through on the commitments you make and holding yourself accountable.   

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Nice. Thank you. Get a couple more. Up right there.   

Audience Member:   0:00
I just thought at the level, not of ethical action in the world, but of just your ability to sense your environment and what is afforded to you to potentially act in the environment. 

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Great. Thank you. Uh, right there.   

Audience Member:   0:00
I said that responsibility is fulfilling a promise you already made. 

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Fantastic. Thank you. And let's get one more, yes.   

Audience Member:   0:00
Responsibility is a commitment. Some are born to it. Others achieve it, and others have it thrust upon them.   

Jason Flamm:   0:00
Nice. Very cool. Thank you all so much for that answer. Let's give another round of applause for those. So what did we notice there? Everyone kind of has their own definition of what responsibility is. And that's the exact same thing we noticed going through this process. And that's why when we go to answer that question question, do we choose responsibility?, we are able to come up with different answers. So what I'm gonna do now is get into some storytelling. Ah, it's why you all came. You all came to listen to me tell stories obviously, uh, so that's what I'm gonna do. In the second grade, um, in Soulard, I went to a school called Lafayette. Um, what was it? I heard there's a lot of lot of, oh, fantastic. Maybe maybe we ran into each other. Uh, I went to a school called Lafayette, and in second grade I was in charge of the dinosaur table. So, as you can probably imagine, this was a table full of dinosaurs. It had little puppets of the land before time. It had little eraser dinosaurs. It had those little green dollar store, ah, dinosaurs. And the reason I was in charge of this is because we had a rule in our class: whoever got done with their work first got to go play, and it just so happened that I was always the first person to get done with my work. So I always got to go play first. And at some point, Mrs. Yates, who was this, um, just this lovely, larger than life woman who just loved to laugh and loved to teach, uh, she noticed this and decided that I was the commander-in-chief of the dinosaur table. I took a lot of pride in this. After all, this was my first ever job, right? I was gonna make sure that nobody ransacked these dinosaurs. Nobody, nobody tossed them in the trash or tore them up. And I took that very seriously, and it's so funny to think about that story. And it's certainly not something two months ago I thought that I'd be explaining to all my career as a dinosaur table king. Right. But that's what it was, and the reason that story came up was because that is the first time in my life that I can remember ever having responsibility, ever knowing that I was responsible for something else. And so when I think about the question, do we choose responsibility? My answer to that question is no. I believe that ultimately, responsibility throughout your life is thrust upon you, is put upon you by those around you, by those you grow up with, by your teachers, by your parents, by the order in which you were born, maybe the societal pressures. And like I said tonight, it's not my goal to convince you that I'm right. That you're wrong. Instead, I just want to share with you why I think that. And by the end of this, we're gonna think through that a little bit more, and we'll see if your beginning answers to that question are the same as your ending answers. Okay, I am, ah, the oldest of three boys to my mom, and I'm the fourth of seven kids to my dad. We lived in a very mixed household. Uh, and the first couple of years of my life, I can only assume were pretty tumultuous. So my mom was 16 when she had me. She had another child by 18, and she had her last boy by 22. Jeez, indeed. And not only that, but my dad had already had three kids of his own and he was married. It was quite a lot to deal with, as I can imagine, through those years. And with that, I mean, I think back to when I was 16. And I can't even imagine having a child all of a sudden and being responsible for that child. You know, at 16 I wasn't even driving yet. I didn't drive until 17. So I wasn't responsible with a driver's license, right? And so I think back to those years and I I often wonder, you know what, what were the pressures? What, what what was having, what was going on? And as I got older, it started to meant, those those decisions, decisions and that lack of responsibility or maybe the over-responsibility for a for a teenager, they really started to come to life for me. And throughout this process, I've got to look back on that. And and there are more stories, uh, tonight that unfortunately aren't as fun as the dinosaur table. At some point, um, when I was five or six years old, one of the earliest memories I have of seeing the repercussions of not taking responsibility came to life. I was over at my aunt and uncle's house. Uh, and a bunch of kids were around, me and my cousins, and I remember breaking the arm off of my aunt's coffee mug. And it was one of those stupid souvenir mugs that you get from Six Flags. It was either Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. I'm sure something like that. I don't remember exactly. And I broke that, broke the arm off. Well, I didn't say anything. I just kind of, you know, like any kid, I threw it on the the counter and walked away, right? Unfortunately, my aunt found out about it, and she saw it. And, uh the way I describe my aunt is this this really tall, really dominating woman. Um, if if they ever made a movie about her life, ah, the person that they'd get to act as her, I think would be The Mountain from Game of Thrones. So that's kind of how I remember my aunt, especially at that time, being real little. And she found, so she found this mug and she I wanted to know who broke it naturally. Um, and of course, all of the kids around said they hadn't done it and especially me. I wasn't about to admit this to The Mountain. Unfortunately, something started to happen, and I remember it very vividly, and it's actually something I think about a lot in my life now, which is crazy to think, because that was that was 30 years ago and this small moment has has had such a profound impact on my life. Something started to happen and she decided that my cousin, who was about a year, maybe two years older than I am, had broken the mug. Uh, he was the middle child of the three kids she had, and unfortunately, he got in trouble a lot. And so she had decided that he had broke this mug and she wasn't gonna take no for an answer. And so I'm watching this unfold, and I'm just terrified as as a small child, and I'm watching it unfold. And at first he's denying it because he didn't break it. And then all of a sudden he starts to admit that he did break it. And of course, I knew this wasn't true. As soon as he did, she began to smack him, to beat him. And I remember just the amount of wailing and screaming and crying that was happening at that time, and I remember feeling so guilty that he was taking the blame for me breaking this mug. So after it all, kind of the dust settled, I was sitting on the couch next to my aunt and very quietly I leaned over and I told her that I had broke her mug. I had decided that it was time to be honest, ah, and I I let her know that I broke her mug, and after I did, she very calmly just said to me, "It's okay, honey." And in that moment, it threw me for such a loop. And what I had just witnessed was was so impactful to me that it was literally at that moment that I decided I'm just never gonna lie again. All right? I am not gonna allow my lack of responsibility or me not taking responsibility for something lead to a punishment for someone else. And so that moment was the moment that needed to happen for me to become the dinosaur table commander, chief, captain, all of those words that I'm drawing a blank on now, colonel, um, dictator. I wasn't really a dictator. That's not fair. It allowed me to become that because that moment was the moment I decided I was gonna be the responsible one. I was gonna be the kid that that was good all the time. I was gonna be the teacher's pet. Boy, was I. Uh I I, teachers loved me. My, Mrs. Yates loved me. Mrs. Martin, my fourth and fifth grade teacher, she loved me. In fact, I remember the last day of school, I bought flowers for Mrs. Martin, uh, and I remember crying that I was leaving fifth grade with her. Ah, it was a very sweet moment. And then that's kind of who I become became and, not just for teachers, but for my parents as well, I wanted to show that I was responsible, that I could do whatever whatever they needed me to do. And so I did. And as the years progressed in the first decade of my life, more and more responsibility started to pop up for me. Now, all of a sudden, I was responsible for going grocery shopping on the weekends, for watching my brothers at a very young age. I think I was maybe 10 or 11 when I watched my brothers for the first time alone without an adult around. As I turned 11, 12, 13, I started to become responsible for taking my mom's food stamp card and going to Aldi's and buying a month's worth of groceries for everyone and tracking them with my brothers or whoever, whoever else I could get to go with me home on a bus. Not only that, but they had me going to a gas station to get them cigarettes. Back then I guess it was a little looser. And those are the things I started having to do, and I remember even at that time, not feeling necessarily sad or bad that I was having to do it, I felt kind of good. I felt proud of myself. Here I am, this good kid that can, that gets asked to do with, do all these things, and as that progressed and as that continued. Sorry, I'm going to steal a glance at my notes, um, that that responsibility started to turn into missing out on things that other kids got to do. You know, I would see other kids go to camp or or spend time with other kids going to go to parties, stuff like that. We didn't really get to do that. Not only where was I having to do these things on the weekend that my parents didn't want to do, but we didn't have a car. We didn't have transportation. We didn't have the ability to do those things. And even now, as an adult, I think back to those moments whenever someone tells me a story of something fun they did as a kid or all the family vacations they used to go on, uh, and I get a little jealous, and I feel like I missed out on that, and I think a lot of it had to do with that responsibility that was that was thrown onto me. On Christmas Eve morning of 1995, um, I was upstairs in bed, and my mom started yelling up the stairs at me to come downstairs, and, of course, as any pre-teen would, I was bitching and moaning about being up so early. But I sludged downstairs, and as I did, I noticed that my dad was in handcuffs and he was being put into a police car. Before I could ask any questions, my mom told me, "Watch the kids. I'll be back," and she got in the police car and they drove off. And I remember in that moment just just going blank, not knowing what to do. I ended up calling the police station to see why the my dad had just been taken off to jail. And unlike the gas station attendants who sold me cigarettes, the police wouldn't talk to me. So I did. And then the next person I called was my oldest half-brother, Chris. Ah, he's about, I think he's six years older than I am, and I'd only seen him a few times in my life. But he, uh, the only criteria at that moment was that he was older than me. And I just wanted anyone, you know, someone else to be responsible for that moment of my life, and I couldn't find it. Nobody knew what was going on. About a year later, my dad, ah, went to official prison. Ah, he was on parole for a little while, but then he went to prison about a year later, and that really changed the course of not only my life, but my brother's life and the life of my entire family. I remember all of us, just kind of doing our own thing. Throughout my teenage years, we're all in our own rooms. We're all trying to cope with it the best we could. My mom was either working all the time or drinking or doing drugs, but she wasn't around very much. And right before my dad went to prison, I had actually started to go to church. Uh, and through that, I was able to find a family, Um, my pastor and his his kids, and uh, and his house, which was massive and had not not like a mansion. I mean, it was in was in Baden. It was off of North Broadway. It was just real big, had a lot of rooms, and so he brought in as many families as he could. Um, I started to go to church, and I started to mingle more with people my age with with his kids with, ah with his daughters. Um and I found this like solace on the weekends. This this grace ah, and it had less to do with the church itself and just more with the love and the activities. And every Saturday night was, ah, microwave pizza night. You know they'd watch movies. They'd watch Saturday Night Live together, and I craved that. I needed that kind of love and attention, and so I found it in them. And as those years went on, more and more, I'd find ways to kind of escape my house. I would do a lot of sports. I would do a lot of extracurricular activities, whatever it took to kind of get out, to get away from the responsibility of the thoughts of that I was having of do I need to quit high school? Do I need to get a job myself? Is it my responsibility to lift us up, to make things better? And instead I chose a different path. I chose, I I wanted to prove to myself, to my mom, to my brothers, to everyone that there was a better way to live your life. There was a, there's a different path to go down, and that's what I wanted to do. And one of the reasons I was able to do that is because of Pastor Don. So Pastor Don unfortunately passed away a couple years ago, but he's one of those people that I definitely do not think about enough, but he had a huge, huge impact on who I am today, on surviving those times. Ah, the best way to describe Pastor Don is a hippie who decided he was just going to keep being a hippie. He had long gray hair and a huge, gray beard. He wore tie-dye shirts all the time, ah, suspenders. And he was just another larger than life character. And it's not lost on me that some of my favorite people in my life were larger than life and had booming voices and laughed a lot. Uh, and I feel like I feel like maybe that's that's kind of who I've become. Probably no surprise. And Pastor Don became my my mentor. He became my surrogate father essentially. Um, he, what was great about him is that he would, he would ask me questions. He would talk to me. He would ask my opinion on things. He wasn't telling me what to do. He was actually asking me what I thought. Not only that, but he was showing me how a family should be, you know, I thought. Ah, he was showing me love. He was showing me compassion. He was one of those people. The church that we went to, it's it's The Church of God at Baden, and it's right at the corner of North Broadway and Halls Ferry, very ah, little bitty church. Back then, it was only about 40, 50 people, and he would, ah, he always fed the homeless. He always let anyone kind of come into his house. He's the type of person, uh, much better than than I am for sure. Any time somebody was on the street, he gave them a dollar. He he made sure they had something, whether it's food, whether it's gas, whatever whatever it could be, and seeing that in person and understanding that it's okay to live life like that, it's okay to listen to people, to understand their needs, to talk to them has become something that I take very near and dear to my heart. And it's a different form of responsibility in the world, right? It's not just focusing on yourself. It's focusing on making everyone around you better. One of my, it's it's really stupid. Uh, one of my favorite stories about Pastor Don that I remember way too often, we were at a Christian music festival called Cornerstone, and I was outside a tent. There was a band playing and Pastor Don was a couple of people behind me, and I, uh, at that time I was ah, pretty chubby teenager. Kind of still a tubby, chubby teenager. Um, I never really had any confidence, you know, growing up and didn't take up for myself. And are these two kids behind me, they were probably my age. They just took a piece of tape and, like, put it on my back. It wasn't like a "Kick me" sign or anything like that. It was just a piece of tape and like, I knew they did it. But I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'm cool. You know, piece of tape, no big deal." And, uh, Pastor Don reached over, tapped them on their shoulder and said, "Remove it." And it's such a little thing, such a stupid thing. But I think about it all the time, you know? And it was a great reminder of like it's okay to stick up for yourself. You know, it's okay to stick up for other people that you care about. And so Pastor Don is one of those people in my life that I've just kind of always considered my real first mentor. The first person that I can look back and say, yeah, I wanted I wanted to be like him. Maybe not the tie-dye shirt or the suspenders. Eh suspenders are all right, um but I wanted to be like him. And if it's okay with you, I'd like to go into the second phase of our activities for the day. I I'd like each of you to just take another 90 seconds because I don't think we do it often enough. I certainly don't think about my mentors enough, whether it's Pastor Don, whether it's some other ones. I don't think about him enough. And this space seems like a really great space to do that, to think about who's made a positive impact on our lives. Who is one or two or three people in your life that have had a positive impact?

Jason Flamm:   31:59
And so after I count to three, if you're willing to participate, just like earlier, Steven, as Steven said, asked you all to shout out your names. I'd love for you to just shout out one of the mentor's names, the person you wrote down. Just shout out their name. Okay, one, two, three. Pastor Don. Perfect. Thank you. I hope that felt good. It feels good to me. Um, I actually, uh, truth be told, when I was backstage, kind of going over this, um, I I teared up a lot thinking about Pastor Don, and I was very nervous coming out and talking about him. Um, so thank you for taking those few moments to just witness and be present and think about your own mentors in your life. So going through high school for me was rough. It was, it was very difficult the first couple years for sure. Unfortunately, at that time, I noticed that. Well, looking back, I didn't know it at the time. But looking back, I know I had my first ever depression when I was 13 years old. And for anyone who has kind of gone through that, you you probably recognize or you might recognize that responsibility isn't really something that's on your mind, you know, when you're going through that and I remember being in chemistry class my freshman year and just just having my head down on my desk and crying. And by the sophomore year, by my sophomore year and through the mentorship of Pastor Don, I started to change, and I started to pick myself up and tell myself that we're gonna get through this. We're gonna make it through high school. We're not gonna quit, and we're gonna go on to college. And so I was very lucky, I think very lucky. That's exactly what happened. I made it through high school. I went off to college. I went to Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, and, ah, unfortunately only lasted a semester. Ah, I got my second and third ever F in school, uh, and unfortunately I got homesick. And I decided to come back, uh, to be with my brothers and family. A couple of years later, after having dated my pastor's daughter, ah, we got married. It was a couple months before my 21st birthday, so I was very young. And through those years, uh, looking back on that, my, and then thinking about responsibility, I remember at the time just feeling like it was something that that had to happen, that I needed to do. I felt like it was my responsibility to prove to my parents, to the world that I knew how a family should run. And little did I know, I did not know how a family should run, and so we struggled, ah, a lot through the first couple years of marriage, to the point where I pretty much realized very quickly that it was a mistake. But my stubborn ways, ah, wouldn't allow me to admit that. I I started to act out of fear, fear of being alone, fear of failing, fear of rejection, All these emotions that I kind of went through throughout my teenage years even, you know, started flooding back to me. And so I tried my best to just make it work. I'm going to do this. This marriage is gonna work out. It's gonna be great. I'll just do it all. It'll be fine. And that just doesn't work. And I knew I knew it wasn't working. So as I got closer to, uh, the age of 30, I, back in 2011, I decided to take my first ever improv class. I was, ah, it was totally by accident. I was on the computer looking for something to do. I just happened to be off work that day. And so I took my first ever improv class at The Improv Trick in St. Louis, that used to be on Cherokee Street. Um, no shout outs. That's fine. Uh, it was very tiny. I think there may be like, 10, 15 of us that ever went. But what improv did was it it helped me completely change my life. It started to help me understand that I didn't have to be afraid of being alone. There were other people. I was developing friendships that I hadn't had in a very long time. I was developing a support system. Um, I was gaining confidence in myself that I never had, and through improv and through this entire process, um, I realized that if things didn't change for me, if if I kept living this way, that there, I really believe, that there was a good chance that I wouldn't have survived another 10, 20 years. I, at that time I was over 400 pounds. I probably hadn't been to a doctor in 7, 8, 9 years. My, I I had a job that I hated, that I didn't want to go to every day. I went back and forth with college over the years but never committed to anything. And so I not only was struggling in my relationship, but I was struggling with myself. These things that I was so scared of and these responsibilities that I thought I had had driven me to a point where I didn't I didn't really do anything for myself. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it turns out I just wasn't. And about a year after starting improv and, uh, spending weeks alone in bed crying, ah, I finally asked my wife for a divorce. I had decided that if I lived the same way for the next 10 years that I would regret everything I'd ever done and and life for me would be wasted. And so we got a divorce, and over the next six to 12 months, my life changed completely. I lost about 150 pounds. I went back to school. I started to develop more friendships and a support system. I met the love of my life. We can clap. Okay. I met the love of my life, um, and by taking that responsibility onto myself and improving myself, I don't think it's a coincidence that life started to get better. In the past couple years, life has continued to improve. There is light at the end of the tunnel, guys. Um, in the past four years, I've been working on a career that I love. I have the greatest friends of all time. Some of them came tonight. I, me and my fiancee bought a house last year in West County, and in a month and half we're getting married, and that's a lot of responsibility. But you know what? It's a responsibility that I appreciate and that I've come to love and that I've come to not just accept but embrace. My previous marriage, I was focused on showing the way it should be done, right, of of doing the things that I thought I was supposed to do, and this time around, I realized that it has to start with myself, that self-responsibility, and by taking care of myself, it's going to allow me to take care of other people, to branch out and take care of other things, and I hope that over the next, I hope another at least 36 years that I'll continue to embrace that and come back to that and understand that I need to do that on a regular basis. A really quick tangent of a metaphor that I like to think of when I think of self-responsibility. Ah, anyone who's ever been on a flight, a plane, has seen the little safety cards and the oxygen mask. One, it's always interesting because it says if you have a kid, put the oxygen mask on yourself, then put it on the kid, right, and it makes total sense. You have to take care of yourself if you're gonna take care of other people. And so, with just a few minutes left, and before I close out, I'd love to take you on a last activity. Hopefully, you're not tired of it yet. If you are, you don't have to participate. Um, I'd love for you to think a little bit more about responsibility, about choosing responsibility and think about the way you answered it half an hour ago. Has it changed? Has it not? And that's totally fine too. And like I said, it wasn't my my goal to convince you that I'm right, you're wrong. That's not it at all. The goal was just to have you think a little bit, and so I'd like to take 90 seconds, ah, and have you write down your answer underneath your other answers. If your idea of responsibility has changed, go ahead and take that time to do it. Or if you just have other thoughts going to take that time to write that on your card. 

Jason Flamm:   44:07
And just like we did up top anyone who is willing to share, whether it's whether it's an old answer, whether it's a new answer, whether it's the same answer. Anyone who's willing to share. I'd love to hear just a couple of thoughts of if responsibility changed for you or if if it stayed the same. Would anyone like to? Oh, over there? Sorry, I can't see too well.  

Audience Member:   44:29
Hi. Um, my first answer was responsibility is doing something that doesn't benefit you in the present but benefits others or yourself at a later date. And I changed my answer because of your story to say that responsibility is also self-care in the present.  

Jason Flamm:   44:47
Fantastic. Thank you. Yes, over here. You can give Mariah another hand.  

Audience Member:   44:59
So my initial answer was that commitment. Oh, I'm sorry. Responsibility is commitment outside of oneself. Um so it's similar, but I kind of changed it again, again to your story. And for me, it is the things that we carry, and so we can either decide to carry those things. People can place in their hands. But we will carry something, and so that responsibility can be a choice if we let it.  

Jason Flamm:   45:27
Awesome. Thank you, yes.  

Audience Member:   45:34
So my answer is similar to that. My first answer was that it's choosing to play a role in something. And then I expanded that by saying it's choosing to be connected, so it's either connected to yourself or to others.  

Jason Flamm:   45:48
Nice. Thank you. Yes, and we heard from you earlier, so oh boy.  

Audience Member:   45:54
Earlier, I said, it's dealing with the consequences of your actions, but I guess the story in the middle, uh, made me think that it's also dealing with the consequences of other people's actions. So I guess particularly the story about on Christmas, your your dad going to jail. You're dealing with the consequences of other people's actions. And so you're taking that responsibility as well.  

Jason Flamm:   46:19
Thank you. One more. Oh, now I'm embarrassed. Down front. Two more. All right. Yes.  

Audience Member:   46:32
Uh, really, I just I didn't really change my answer. Um, after your story, uh, just really, truly acting with longevity in mind whether that's self-preservation, realizing, uh, your team is is your team. Um, maintenance, really. But great, great testimony there.

Jason Flamm:   46:50
Thank you. Thank you. Did you want to go on now? Okay, one more. One more.  

Audience Member:   47:05
Yeah. So my initial answer was that responsibility was taking care of someone or something. Um, I still think that while we may not have responsibility, we may not choose responsibility, I think that our personality impacts how we respond to it. You didn't have to step up the way that you did, but you chose to handle the responsibility in a certain way. Um and so I think that there are levels of ways that you could take on that responsibility. So it depends on the person.  

Jason Flamm:   47:38
Thank you. Awesome. Thank you all for them. Let's give yourselves a hand. I love it. Love it. Thank you all so much for sharing. I have one final kind of thought slash um fortune cookie. It would be a lot of fortune cookies, I guess. So, whether you agree with me or not, whether I changed your mind, whether you changed your mind or whether it stayed the same, it's really not the point. It doesn't matter. Instead, what I believe matters is that your ultimate responsibility is to yourself, and I believe that if we would all take a few moments, a little bit of extra time to take care of ourselves, it can help all of us take better care of each other. Thank you.  

Steven Harowitz:   48:46
And that's a wrap. I'd like to thank Jason for answering this Season's question, do we choose responsibility? If you want to, you can see the answers to this Season's question as written by audience members from each Campfire. Visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/campfirestl. A big thank you to the Campfire team, our photographers and videographers, and a special thanks to KDHX Community Media for being our partners on this journey. We're so honored to host Campfire live in The Stage at KDHX and for letting us record in KDHX Studios in St. Louis. If you want to learn more about Campfire and the work we do, visit cmpfr.com. That's c m p f r dot com. And if you liked what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. It really helps out. Until next time.