January: The month without gossip

Yes folks it's true. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Stacy Cowart is going to go an entire month without gossiping. Anyone that knows me is well aware that as much as I try to deny it, I love some good gossip. I'm going to say it's in my genes because my mom and my aunts are the queens of it. So you see, it isn't entirely my fault. I try to make an effort not to gossip, but I always get sucked in if I hear others doing it. It's hard when you're sitting in a restaurant with friends and they start a story about someone, everyone adding their two cents. You want to add yours in, you know it's wrong, but you can't help yourself. Before you know it, your two cents is five dollars. Any story that starts with "Girrrrl let me tell you....." is 99.99% of the time gossip territory. I'm guilty. I've chartered those waters many a time, and this is why I want to stop. It's not healthy. It's pointless. And let's be honest, it's just not nice. If I really want to "do better" this year I need to start out strong. Go hard or go home, right?

So you may be asking yourself what does giving up gossip entail? It's not just the words coming out of my mouth. I am not only curbing gossip from rolling off my tongue, I'm giving up gossip magazines. No more People, Life & Style, Us, etc. No more gossip blogs. I'm even going to give up The New York Daily News online because let's be honest it's 50% real news 50% gossip and I don't want to be tempted. And the one that may be the hardest yet, I'm giving up Facebook. Yes, Facebook too. I struggled with this one. The truth is, I like Facebook because it has helped me to reconnect with a lot of people. BUT (not just in caps but bold) a lot of times I'm on there trying to find out the latest scoop. For example, who's gone up/down in weight, who actually married the dork from high school, why someone's relationship status suddenly disappeared, who got a little too drunk and posted pictures, etc. When you break it down to the nuts and bolts, I'm on Facebook gossiping.

There it is. I will not gossip the entire month of January. I hope that it actually has a lasting effect. I'm not saying that I will never gossip again in my life, although that would be awesome if I could really do that. I just know gossiping is my bad habit and I'd like to curb it significantly if not all together. Cross your fingers for me and say a little prayer, this is going to be tough.