Listen More

It’s Lent. I’ve thought a decent amount about what I should do for it. In terms of personal growth, I really need to work on talking less about myself. I find myself jumping into conversations with my own stories a little too frequently. I was a very quiet person for a very long time, and I struggled with talking to other people. Between living in Florence with a group of very chatty girls, and trying to make friends in graduate school, I find it easier to share experiences and think of things to say. But I feel I’ve begun to overcompensate for that past quietness, and I do not like it. Sometimes I say things without fully thinking them through, and I’ve caught myself interrupting others, which is not nice. I need to listen more.

An installation I saw at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in July 2011.

I also want to try to enrich my life in a few ways, and introduce some more balance to it. I am going to try to write a blog post here every other day. I used to write a lot – maybe exhausting my thoughts here will lead to some quieter habits.

And I am going to read a book for 20 minutes every day. It’s a very attainable goal if I budget time for it. I have a large shelf of books I bought last summer and haven’t started yet, and several that I haven’t finished. Twenty minutes a night isn’t likely to get me through them at any great speed, but I want to read more, and this is a step. I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos – which I do not think in itself is a poor use of time. But I’d like to have some more balance.

I’ve also generally decided to give up fried foods, with a likely exception over for a couple days in March so I can fully enjoy my last school break ever.

Yesterday I submitted a full draft of my thesis, and there are less than two weeks left in the quarter. I still have a great deal of other classwork to do, which I’ve been putting off due to said thesis drafting. But after that I’m going home for a friend’s wedding, and then Eric and I are going on a lovely warm adventure.