Before the experiment
My fiancée Beth grew up in an environment without cussing. I did not.She has always been bothered by the amount I curse. At first I thought she was being ridiculous, and that she should just get with the times. But it persisted in bothering her. A few years before trying the experiment, a swear jar occurred to me. I told her that before we had a child, I would use a swear jar. I also told her that I wouldn't be able to start immediately because there were too many other projects going on in my life.
I refused to promise I would stop without a system. I feel too many people, men especially, promise to change just to stop getting nagged at. There is another term for that: self-deception. Another word: a lie.
I don't like lying. And the worst people to lie to are 1.) myself and 2.) the love of my life. It is ridiculous to think you can break a habit through will power. Instead, I knew I needed a system. So I made a system. My rules were simple: I pulled out $2 for every f-word, and $1 for every other curse word. I had some cash on me because I had come back from a trip, so it was easy to immediately pull out some money for every curse word. Here is a chronicle of what turned out to be a very effective process.
Day 1
The first curse word I caught myself saying I had to do some mental back-tracking to realize I had said it. I want in middle of an impassioned tirade about, of all things, young adult literature. I realized I had gotten myself worked up and speaking quickly, so I paused, and thought about what I had said and realized I had said "by having so many young characters altering the very fabric of society, young adult literature kisses the a-- of kids." Beth and I were in the car, so I pulled out a dollar and placed it on the dashboard.I was up to $4 a hour or so before sunset and thought I was in the clear. But I ran an errand and as I was driving home a car was really close to me. Exasperated, I said the f word, and immediately realized that would cost me $2. It stopped any more cuss words, and I got home safely. Then, later, I was online and saw something I thought was stupid, I said it was "f--ing stupid." Well, that remark was f--ing stupid of me. And it cost me $2.
Daily Total: $8.
Day 2
On this day I also looked around for a bracelet so I could start with a complaint bracelet. Though I think it is a bad idea to focus on too many things at once, I thought it both complaining and cursing were tied to negativity, so I might as well give it a shot. I also learned on the second day that a lot of cursing is built into our automatic phrases that are the building blocks for our speech. For example, I pulled out a dollar after saying "I got (blank) to do." Another example, which I have not said, are "hauling (blank)", and "f--ing funny," which I unfortunately did say.Daily Total: $7.
I had only done this 2 days and I was at $15. I thought it was going to take a hundred dollars, maybe hundreds of dollars to break the habit. The next day, however, lead to a decent reduction.
Day 3
I caught myself a few times in the morning before saying bad words. Also, I listened to "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and noticed how much cursing there was. I couldn't sing along, and that was a odd experience. When I took a shower, it was a bit too hot. I said the s-word. Later in the day when my foot fell asleep, I managed to say "shoot," instead, with much profusion on that replacement word. Unfortunately, I got started on a mini-rant. I ended up pulling out $2 before it was done. But Beth later agreed with me that those $2 probably prevented another 10-30 cuss words. So, I think the system fulfilled its purpose. Also, I of course changed over my complaint bracelet.Daily Total: $4
Day 4
I only had to catch myself once this day. I knew I owed Beth a huge-(blank) apology for something. It was the first day on the experiment I didn't say a single cuss word.Daily Total: $0
Day 5
I listened to the Macklemore song again (what can I say, I am a fan of thrift). In an idle moment I caught myself with my head bopping, mouthing "You hell-a wont." Of all the things in that song, that's what got me.Daily Total: $1
That brought me to $20. Now, it's not that I've never cursed again. But the amount has been drastically reduced. I was amazed by how quickly this procedure worked. Though I will grant that summers are a very peaceful time for me, so that probably had something to do with it.
