Lent

Google define states that Lent is “The period of 40 weekdays that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence.” It is traditional in this time that you give something up for the period from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, even if you’re not religious.

The vast majority of people will give up something they like in order to be healthier with bread, smoking, alcohol, chocolate and crisps being some of the most common. Others chose things to try and make them better people and give up swearing or teasing their siblings.

The first lent I remember is one where, aged 7, I gave up tomato ketchup; strange, I know, but I was a little bit addicted. It didn’t work very well because I just substituted it with other sauces instead. The same sort of thing happened when I gave up bread both last year and the year before and crisps and chocolate on other occasions.

This year, instead of going for the hat-trick of bread I had been planning since last year, I thought I might do something different…

Remember a few months back I challenged myself to write a blog a day? Well, I did. Anyway, following on from the (sort of) success of that, my promise for Lent this year is not to give something up but to repeat this. No, it’s not cheating because, if you think about it, I’m giving up being lazy and procrastinating (see, clever, no?)

Besides, it’s better than most of today’s lent promises on 3 points

1)      It’s possible – so unlike most, I won’t give up after about 4 days

2)      It’s not selfish – which I suppose is debatable, but if you think about it, promising to be nice is something you should do anyway and giving up crisps or whatever is usually to aid your own diet and isn’t helping anyone or making the world better which, if you think about it, is kind of the point of all this.

3)      It’s positive – because I could have done something similar to what I do for my New Year’s resolution and give up giving up things, which is both pathetic and unfulfilling, plus, it’ll be helping with my degree, which can only be a good thing

I realise they’re fairly weak points, but you can’t deny there’s something behind my bizarre process of thought.

Also, for those of you who will remind me I gave up after about a week and a half of the whole a-blog-a-day she-bang, Lent is only Monday through Saturday, so I can get Sunday off to recover so, who knows, maybe I might even stick at it for longer than the 40 days.

I doubt it though.

(Also, I’m totally counting this as Wednesday’s blog post, even if I did finish writing it at half eleven on the Tuesday)