One Month Challenge: Giving Up Gossiping, Week 2

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month we're following Christie on her quest to stop gossiping. The first few days were rough. Let's see how she's holding up sans gossip now.]

By Christie

And so ends my first full week of no gossip…. and it was pretty tough.  I would go to tell my family, friends, or boyfriend something and before I even opened my mouth I would have to ask myself if it was gossip. A lot of times, it would be, so I would have to stop, come up with another topic and start over. Naturally, it created an abnormal and totally awkward pause, but overall the people I spoke to were very supportive.

At the beginning of the week, it was refreshing having this challenge, because it felt good to talk about someone positively when others were talking about them negatively. When my boyfriend was venting to me because he was frustrated, for example, I immediately tried to look at things from the other person’s perspective. It wasn’t reprimanding; it was just being rational. Rather than being upset, my boyfriend thanked me, and told me that he understood the situation better after me being positive about the person he was talking about.

So, yeah, things were going pretty good.
For awhile…

Then at the end of the week, I started making excuses for myself. “That isn’t gossip,” I would say. “That’s just something they posted on Facebook.” It wasn’t right, I’ll admit, but I did it nonetheless. And seriously, Facebook is like a gossip machine. I mean, come on, how many of us talk about things that come up on our feed? Like a gag-worthy status or a really mean wall post? It’s nearly impossible to hop on Facebook and not gossip. Lesson learned.

After that minor snafu, things are going better – I am thinking before I blab, and it is getting easier. I just need to stop making excuses from myself. I set this challenge up and I need to commit to it! I just hope my friends don’t get annoyed with the more positive, rational Christie 2.0. I mean, after all, sometimes all a girl wants to hear after venting is “wow, that really sucks,” or “what a bitch” – not “well maybe she didn’t mean to do that, she really is a sweet person.”