Background

With the goal of evolving and becoming better people, and to have a bit of fun, my friend Jen and I challenge each other to complete a special task for the month of September, 2014… I was challenged to eliminate curse words from my speech entirely!

While I am well spoken enough and try to speak and write correctly in formal and work settings, I admit that I have a bit of a potty mouth in more casual encounters.  To be honest, I never thought much of it as I grew up hearing curse words all the time: family, friends, TV, movies, etc… and I feel like it is a natural part of my vernacular and comedy.  I never even noticed much when other people would use curse words with me, either.

At first I did not think that this challenge would be difficult.  Surly I had enough self-control, creativity of speech and a sufficiently varied vocabulary that I would be able to express myself clearly in all settings without needing to utilize swear words.

For the most part, I was right…

Observations

That being said, I did slip up from time to time.  I found that these instances were more reactionary than intentional.  It appears that I have developed a few choice expressions using swear words and that I utilize them as If they were a reflex.  A few examples might include:

• Disbelief: “Get the fuck out of here!”
• Surprise: “What the fuck?”
• Panic: “Oh shit!”
• Decision Making: “Fuck it, let’s do it.”
• Etc…

In these cases my intention would clearly not be to offend but to express emotions or simply to react to certain situations; however, the words used might be offensive to some people and deemed inappropriate in certain social situations.

While I may not have said them aloud, I did notice myself thinking in curse words from time-to-time as well… mostly when people were getting under my skin!  I also noticed that when people around me were cursing excessively I was more apt to join them, but this was not a common issue during the month.

Successful?

Technically this challenge was not successful as I did curse during the month.

Nevertheless, I found that I gained a greater awareness of cursing in general.  I noticed when other people were cursing, and was surprised at the frequency with which they did.  This was especially true for people I had known for a while.

When I immediately finished the challenge I found it difficult to curse again even though I could.  Still, twenty-six days have passed since the challenge has finished and I still feel like I curse less than I did before.  I am much more conscious of the use of cursing than I had been prior, and I suspect that this habit will continue… at least for the short term.

What’s Next?

More challenges will come, hopefully monthly, but I will only be posting the ones which were “successful”.  For example, I was presented a photo challenge (a very well thought out one at that) for the month of October 2014, but it has not gone well due to work and travel.  I hope to retry in November 2014.  Feel free to ask Jen what I challenged her to do!

Comment below and let me know if you have any challenges for me, too : )