Feisty

It isn't a bad word, or at least not completely bad. It means touchy, quarrelsome... full of spirit or pluck; frisky or spunky. See, not all bad. In a word, Margaret Mitchell's Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind was... feisty. And yet, I believe she wanted to be good. She wanted to be soft and gentle, thoughtful and compassionate, prudent and restrained- or at least have moments being such. The character of Melanie was introduced to mirror everything Scarlett was not. Melanie was all the aforementioned words. Scarlett hated her for it, not only because she wasn't those things- but mostly because the man Scarlett loved had fallen for every tempered and gentle part of Melanie. I first saw this movie when I was a little girl- maybe 5 or 6 yrs old. I don't know how many times I've seen it since, but everytime I do, I find myself in some of the scenes- cheering for Scarlett or at least understanding her. Not that I was ever spoiled, or even remotely wealthy... more in the sense that often her impatient, prideful and stubborn nature would get her into trouble. I admire her tenacity and her determination to get through hard times- you see that in her character especially as the civil war ended and she had nothing.

Thankfully my likeness to Scarlett's story ends with her restless nature- I am very happy with my Rhett Butler. Again, I need to stress that I don't believe being feisty is a completely negative thing- it's nice to know I can usually say what I mean and mean what I say. However, I'm searching for a certain amount of softness to blend with the spunk as my edges are often too rough.

I'm willing to put effort into this- to look for opportunities to restrain, think twice, and speak softer. I will do this through a series of weekly challenges/goals. I know I have at least 52 things to work on. Week by week I hope to uncover a really great person. I understand that one week is not always enough time to change or enhance something within me. But the point is to focus on one thing at a time for an entire week, and then as the weeks pass by and the challenges change, I will take with me the experiences I've had and continually work on past and present goals.

So,
this is the story of taming the
Scarlett
in me.