Personal Narrative: Keeping Up With My Personal Niyamas

While this past month has not been easy for me to keep up with my personal niyamas, it has definitely allowed me to gain a deeper insight into myself and learn some new things along the way. My first niyama I chose to focus on was purity. While everyone can always strive to eat better of exercise more, I wanted to do something personal and something I have been effected by for a long time. I have been biting my nails for longer than I can remember, and I know my nails are too short. I am constantly reminded when I try to pry open a can of soup or scratch off a lottery ticket without a coin that my nails are unnaturally short. I have tried to stop before, but failure was always the end result. For this month I chose to focus less on completely …show more content…
Overall my progress made was minimal if not nonexistent. Still I have learned much about my habit. I used to think that I did not just bite my nails when I was nervous or anxious, but because my brain just did it out of routine. I did notice, however, that I did tend to bite my nails during stressful times, whether it had to do with school work, sports, or some everyday tasks. I am not typically a nervous person. I would even say I am rarely ever nervous or stressed out to the point of being incapable to handle a situation. I try to always think positively as well as remind myself that the problem I am facing has no importance in the grand scheme of everything. Maybe this is a terrifying thought to some people, but to me it brings solace. Beyond all of this, I feel I have absolutely got better at identifying when I am biting my nails. It probably sounds weird to someone that doesn’t bite their nails how a person cannot tell then they are physically doing something. To me it is the same thing as when people tap their fingers or bounce their leg. I feel good about where I am presently, and I can see myself possible working to completely quite my habit in the …show more content…
I chose to focus on austerity, and my personal goal was to read a couple Wikipedia articles every day at night using the random article feature on the site. Eventually this turned into me using the feature to find one good random article that I could really dive into and learn something new, and I feel the effect of this is better than just reading one sentence about some random town in Minnesota, for example. Overall I think it was very relaxing and intriguing to read about something completely new I’ve never even thought about before each day. I was also very pleased to be exposed to certain topics like higher dimensions in string theory and artificial intelligence programming, both relating to my major. Also as an aside, I still adore Peggys Cove. It just looks like a great place to visit or even live. I think the readings exposed me to topics I would have never have come across otherwise, and overall it was an enjoyable experience. After this month has passed, obviously I have not completely changed as a human being nor have I made any noticeable progress in my bad habit, but I have gained a deeper insight into myself, and I am glad I chose the niyamas that I