When I was a kid, I was a nail-biter. I’ve graduated to being a lip-chewer. I’m full of bad habits. I’ve been a hair-twirler, an eyelash-puller, a cuticle-picker, and a leg-jiggler. On the way, I’ve picked up several other bad habits I’m trying to break:
Pointing. I have a weird tic of pointing at people when I agree with them. It’s aggressive and confrontational. I’ve tried to do other gestures that are less, eh, pointed? when the emotions I’m trying to express are warm and not at all harsh, like holding my hands out with my palms up, or bumping my fist. The situations of pointing are, I suppose, situations where I might also lift a hand up to go for a high-five. I’m pointing like “YES! I think so too!” but I was told that pointing is rude! It’s against the rules to point with one finger at Disney World, true story.
Babbling my way out of a tight spot. Babbling, in general, is a pretty bad habit of mine. But if I say something “wrong” or fear that I’ve offended/upset someone, I have a tendency to talk and talk and talk. And talk and talk and talk. Which I think could be construed as “doubling down” at worst, or “defensiveness” at best. When I trespass in this fashion, I will obsess over it for hours, days! Finally, I come to the conclusion that the solution to the awkwardness is to just apologize, and live with the shame, rather than trying to talk my way out of an awkward place. Why is that so hard???
Talking about myself. Yes I’m a Leo, my ruling planet is the Sun, and as such, I have a hard time remembering that the known universe doesn’t in fact revolve around me. If left unchecked, I have a nasty habit of talking about MYself, MY feelings, MY opinions, until everyone around me is annoyed. You’d think that having a blog, an outlet to babble about my thoughts incessantly, would drain me of the need to talk about myself all of the time, but no! In the best of circumstances, I would say this is out of loneliness, and a desire to be seen and known. But I’m working to practice stillness, self-censorship, and quiet. I used to be such a quiet person! It’s like a floodgate is down, and I need to fill time with words. It’s not the worst habit, but it’s not my most endearing quality.
Not proofreading this blog. writing posts in fits and spurts and scheduling it weeks into advance. only reading it through when it auto-publishes and hits my Bloglovin’ dashboard and realizing UGH it doesn’t make any sense! I have 199 drafts, and I’ll be working on at least 5 of them simultaneously. I’ll flip from one to the other, re-read, change things, and then “schedule” without reading through that one last time it takes to make sure you’re all good. Careless!
So I’m working on personal growth, and trying to be better in many ways. But these bad habits should be easy enough to break… right??? Guess we’ll have to see… it’ll be a… nail-biter!
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