Wednesday, October 23, 2013

iexamen 2


Julia Kontos
Formalities
            I woke up Monday morning excited to challenge myself to say what is only true, useful and kind for the duration of the day. However, my excitement soon disappeared considering I was awake at 8 in the morning after a long weekend off. My natural response to being awake this early would have been to complain with my roommates about how miserable we all felt and how badly we all wanted to skip class, but considering that none of that is kind or useful, I held my tongue. Instead, I sat in complete silence as my roommate promised me that she would skip class and go back to sleep, even though we both knew her words held no merit. As I listened to my roommates’ whines for a solid ten minutes, I realized how annoying and wasteful we truly are. We spend three mornings a week having the same pointless conversation over and over again, and none of us question it. I gently pointed this out to the girls, who laughed it off and continued their ranting.
            It proved easy to only say kind, useful and true things for the rest of my morning, as I went from lecture hall to lecture hall, barely speaking at all. However, I struggled quite a bit in my hour break between my morning and afternoon classes during which time I had to sell tickets for the Ghost Tour – something that I was not excited to do in the slightest. Normally, my roommate Liz and I would have only had sarcastic comments to make; however, for the purposes of this assignment, I withheld. It felt so weird to not be sarcastic in my overenthusiastic advertising attempts. Looking back, I think that being sarcastic is a natural response for me to protect myself from others. Spending this hour being only friendly and kind allowed me to meet and even bond with a few people who probably would have shied away from my usually sarcastic demeanor. It will be interesting to see whether or not these relationships were formed because I was only saying what was kind, useful and true. Considering I will be spending Friday night with them on the Ghost Tour, I will be able to see if this is true or not. The outcome will be interesting, but will not necessarily affect me. I do not believe in being formal with people my own age in most situations, so I like to act myself around them from the start. I think that I say things that are only kind, useful, and true to people that I have formal relationships with, like my professors. Therefore, this assignment only impacted my social relationships.
            I spent my day with a normal behavior towards my professors and bosses, but had a different attitude towards my peers. Although it was initially difficult to refrain from sarcastic or unnecessary comments, I started to enjoy saying only kind, useful and true things. Also, I concentrated more on what others were saying and realized how many weird and unnecessary conversations people have. I have started making fun of my roommates for having the same conversation every morning, because while true, it is neither useful nor in good spirit. 

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