Lent

Every year I make an effort to give up something for Lent.  No, I'm not Catholic, but Lent is a great idea, isn't it?  There are lots of great religious traditions out there, and I secretly would love to observe one per major world religion at least once in my lifetime.

Lent is one I started taking seriously some years ago, and I really like it.  The idea that we're trying to give up something that will improve our relationship with God and our life in general?  GREAT idea.  I'm totally on board.

Most years before I started taking it seriously I gave up tangerines.  Because I was pretty sure that I wasn't in danger of eating any of those anyway.

Here's my issue with Lent:  People give up silly things.  Chocolate?  Really?  For what purpose?  Does giving up chocolate draw you closer to God?  I doubt it.

So I started thinking hard about something meaningful that I could give up.

One year I gave up Anger.  That was a fascinating experiment, and one that helped me re-center my life and work on becoming a calmer person in general.  Win for everyone.

This year, in light of my recent struggles with school and being cheerful, I thought that I could give up Despair and Despondency.  But that's not something that I'd have to work on every day.

So I finally figured it out, though I haven't fully defined all the parameters.  This year I'm giving up Laziness.  And/or Procrastination.  I'm not sure which one I'm really trying to tackle, but those are correlaries anyway.

This means I'm going to exercise every day without saying, "I'd rather just sit on the couch." 
This means I'm going to do things in a timely manner without pushing everything off until "tomorrow".
This means less movie watching and more book reading.
This means less meaningless game playing.

This does NOT mean giving up all downtime.  That would be awful.

Anyway.  What do you guys think?