For a Better Lent

What a waste of a great idea — elect to spend 40 days depriving yourself of something in an effort to improve your life and pay homage to your deity. It’s such a good idea that many non-believers undertake the burden as well. But the experience is wasted on the frivolously easy: denying oneself some kind of food or some kind of simple pleasure. “I’m not eating chocolate,” or “I’m giving of coffee.” The truly bold eschew chemicals: “no caffeine for me.” Sometimes this simple 40-day tryst into the realm of willful self-control holds, and a lasting effect is made on a person’s life. They’ll give up soda, saving thousands of calories a year and removing a chemical addiction, improving the person’s quality of life and extending their lifespan. I’m not sure what percentage of people this happens for, but I’m fairly certain it’s pretty low. Candy doesn’t stop being delicious, and relapsing into addiction (caffeine included) only takes a few sips.

I propose instead that a person should actively seek to modify their life during Ash Wednesday, and to make a change that affects who they are as a person for the better. Giving up laziness is a bit of an easy rewrite of a New Year’s resolution, but maybe eschewing the couch (or lounge chair) for forty days could change your lifestyle. Sure, that could work. But go a step further and look at the bad habits that envelop your personality. Maybe give up excuses, or forgo bigoted jokes. Refuse being awake during the hours from midnight to five a.m. Perhaps it could be something that, from the religious point of view, you should be doing anyway: have the restraint to deny yourself envy or hubris (”don’t get cocky, kid!”).

It’s in this light that I’m going to try to give up complaining for forty days and see how it goes. It doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion, like in this article — I’m not complaining about Ash Wednesday. I’m simply saying that I think it could be so much more. What I can’t do is complain about my work, bitch about my boss, or whine about petty annoyances. Aside from nobody else wanting to hear that kind of stuff, I’m of the firm belief that my life will be better off if this habit sticks. If Ash Wednesday is your kind of gig, I encourage you to be a little bolder than the standard stock.

Note: I realize that Lent is a period of fasting on the liturgical calendar meant to mirror the period Jesus spent wandering the desert and reflects his resistance of the temptations of the devil. As such, it’s perhaps more traditional to give up indulgences related to sin. Combine this with the fact that it’s a fast and it becomes easy to see why people to give up a kind of food or drink. To my knowledge, however, there is nothing scripturally incorrect with the idea of fasting from behavior that wavers toward the sinful or indulgent.