Recently I removed my final crutch by starting my #swearingproject and finally learned what the Stoics teach – how to control my emotions.
My secret to not swearing is tracking it every day.
Here’s what I’ve learned: so far
- Swearing is like removing the cork from a volcano. It lets my emotions overflow and explode.
- Not swearing makes me pause and choose my words more carefully.
- People swear to fit in.
- My father-in-law made a decision not to swear with a friend of his. No one knew this. We just thought he just didn’t swear.
- My wife only didn’t want me to swear in front of the kids.
- When I tightened the parameters I had a terrible week.
- The F word doesn’t occur to me as often as it did.
Common myths about swearing I’ve learned:
- swearing is not a sign of intelligence
- swearing is not a sign of a lack of vocabulary and low intelligence
- you cant stop swearing
There’s more besides this that I’m learning every day. It’s funny now that like when I stopped drinking people behave differently around me once they know I don’t swear. They might even apologise when they do.
When you have removed all the crutches the only thing you have left is to be better. I’m not saying you should but in my opinion, it’s worth testing it.