Bad Words

6 months ago, on a whim during a road trip with a friend in late November, I decided I was going to stop cussing for the month of December. I quickly announced my intention out loud in order to hold myself accountable, even though I was inwardly thinking it would be a nearly impossible habit to break. While I made the decision to commit to the change quickly in the moment, it was actually something I’d been thinking about for a while. I had begun to realize that the times I was most often cussing was when I was emphasizing negative feelings...irritated at a bad driver, complaining about something at work, expressing frustration while chatting with friends...all things that didn’t deserve my energy to start with, much less energy focused on unproductive feelings. So, I decided to stop cussing, and, in turn, stop giving that time and space to negativity.

6 months later, and I’m proud of the results. I decided I was going to stop cussing for a month, and it’s now been 6 with no looking back. Now, I have chosen to cuss a very small number of times, but the difference is that those were active choices based on the situations, and not just mindless actions and pointless negative energy. I’ll admit it still feels appropriate to give voice to a few choice words when I’m fighting with an unruly fly line or feeling especially exasperated with a conversation, but those times are rare and carefully chosen.

The point here is not that there’s anything wrong with cussing. It’s that I identified something that was taking time and energy away from the positive things in my life, and I made a change.

Anyone else have a habit you’ve identified that you want to focus on changing or have already changed?