On Friday, my English teacher took fifty minutes to explain what a cliche is and why we must avoid it at all costs. Language or ideas that are overused, unoriginal, and ultimately have become disconnected to their meaning. For example, “All that glitters is gold,” “shoulder to shoulder,” butterflies,” and “her heart fell through her stomach.” You get the idea. He then went on to talk about some of the newest cliches.“Wellness” and “self-care” were at the top of his list. I was surprised when he first cited these two terms. But, it’s hard to argue that they haven’t become popular, if not overused.
In a new semester, new year, and new decade I definitely have been thinking a lot about resolutions — things I want to implement in my life going forward. Self-care and wellness were absolutely part of that list. But, the danger of a cliche is that it often is divorced from real thought or action. So, with a desire to be kinder to myself in certain ways, I definitely don’t want to get trapped in new years cliches.
How then do I keep my resolutions tangible and enforceable? I think my list was too vague, and even more than that, I hadn’t really worked through or solidified what changes I actually wanted to make. It’s one thing to say you want to take more time to focus on your wellness, and another to say the actual actions you are going to take to alter your physical and mental health. So, almost a month into 2020, I’ve decided to remake my resolutions, and if you haven’t said specific, cliche-free ones — you could too! Just because it’s not January 1st doesn’t mean you should wait for the next year or even decade to really think about what you want for yourself. Here are a few of the ones I have made:
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Do workouts I actually like instead of the same thing every day. It’s important to take those thirty minutes or whatever it may be for you to move your body, but I often get stuck getting on the treadmill every time and absolutely dreading it. I want to keep it fun, but also to be nicer to my body.
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Mediate everyday. I went to a Quaker school for twelve years and miss finding time to sit in silence. So, everyday I want to hold myself to meditating or at least sitting alone with my thoughts for at least ten minutes.
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Working to find moderation with food. I want to make sure I eat the foods I love and eat them in moderation on a regular basis so I don’t find myself not having them for a long time and then having intense cravings and eating them all at once.
These are a few of mine but yours can be totally different. Let’s work on getting rid of not only the cliches we use in our essays but also the ones we use in our daily lives.