Lent

Let me start by saying, no, I'm not Catholic. However, I have been thinking about giving up/taking on something for Lent. (For more information on Lent, this is a really helpful website. I especially like the section titled "Confusion about Lent.") I know, I know. Today is Ash Wednesday, so it's a little late to be thinking about it, but here are some ideas I have run across.

1. Giving up Coke, or sodas in general. This one is very common because caffeine is so addictive that people have a hard time giving it up. I think this one would be especially difficult because I do so much driving. I'm afraid I need that caffeine to stay awake on my daily commute. Plus, I already had a Coke this morning. Oops.



2. I also thought about giving up going out to eat. I don't think I realized how often I go out to eat, but I could save quite a bit of money by doing this. The problem with this is that I am a part of a small group of individuals at my workplace who go out to eat almost every week, and usually if one of us doesn't go, none of us go. I know this sounds silly, but I would hate to break up the group.



3. I have a friend who is giving up half of his meals. From what I understand, if he used to eat a breakfast burrito in the mornings, he would now only eat half of a breakfast burrito and have the other half the next morning. When he goes out to eat, he puts half of the food in a to-go box and eats the rest later.



4. I read one suggestion that you make a list of 40 people who have made an impact on your life in some way, and write a letter to one of them every day of Lent. I think this sounds beautiful. When I took a psychology class in college, we talked about positive psychology and how these types of things can really make you a happier person. This one is a good possibility.



5. There's always the idea of giving up facebook. I've done this before, and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, I hardly missed it after the first two days. This fact alone makes me think that this idea isn't the best one.



6. Some people give up television. I feel like television is my escape from reality, so I'm not sure I want to give this up. Plus, if I'm being honest with myself, I think I would just spend more time on facebook as a result, and I would probably end up watching everything I missed after Lent was over. Therefore, I thought about "refining" this one:



7. Giving up reality tv. If I am going to use the excuse that television is my escape from reality, why am I watching reality tv? Interesting. I would miss Top Chef, The Biggest Loser, and Project Runway terribly. But do competition shows count as reality tv? If not, I don't think I watch any reality tv.



8. Giving up the elevator. My left knee genuinely aches for hours and sometimes swells up after I take the stairs, but I talked to a friend (who is a nurse) and she said that I should see if it gets better over time or continues hurting before I decide whether or not to let this stop me from taking the stairs. (Actually, she said I should go to the doctor, but without health insurance, that is not yet an option. I'm working on it.) So if I did this one, it would have to be on a conditional basis because I would hate to be making something worse.



9. This one is kind of radical, but I think it may be one of my favorites. Give up your snooze button. I probably hit snooze at least 5 times every morning. I wonder how much time I waste doing that. If I did this, the question would be do I just set my alarm for a later time, or do I actually get up early and do something with that time?



10. Give up good parking. The idea behind this one is that you only park in the back of parking lots and reflect on why you give up things for Lent while you walk to wherever it is you're going.

So, now I just have to decide.

Godspeed.

Thinking Too Much

So I know I've gotten off to a poor start with this blog. I think I've only posted on time twice, but that's who I am in a nut shell I suppose.

The real problem is that I feel like a fake. I read a lot of different blogs and the blogs I read seem to have one of two things happening:

1.) The person writing the blog has a seemingly perfect life.
2.) The person does not have a perfect life, but is incredibly clever.

Now, I am fully aware that the people who fall into category #1 do not have a perfect life, but that doesn't change the fact that every blog post makes it seem as though that person has a perfect life. Ultimately, I do not want to misrepresent myself on this blog. My life is far from perfect, so I don't want people to confuse me with that first group. (I should also clarify here that I don't think there is anything wrong with those people in group #1. In fact, one of the things I worry about is using my blog to complain about things, and I imagine most of those group #1 people are trying to avoid doing that.) I also don't feel as though I am consistently clever enough. Don't get me wrong. I have my moments. I can be downright witty sometimes. I just don't feel this occurs often enough for me to blog on a weekly basis. So, I'm still going through the stages of figuring out what I want this blog to be.

For now, I'm going to link to something that I saw on Pinterest, because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

http://c4d3nz4.tumblr.com/post/17362649147/whelming-c4d3nz4-i-dont-post-things#notes

Godspeed.