The time has come and Lent is here. If you participate in Lent, you're still probably wondering what you should give up for these 40 days. Candy? Pop? Drinking? Try something a little different this year. Instead of giving up something that is an object, a thing, or food give up bad habits in your life. Jesus asks us to fast, but there are no rules on what we have to give up. Think about fasting from the bad, giving to the good, and try to commit to something new. I have a list of ideas for you to try.
Fasting
1. Skip the snooze button. We all do it, even if we don't like to admit it and we end up regretting the 10 extra minutes of sleep because it caused us to be 10 minutes late. Try to get up right when the alarm goes off.
2. Fast from coffee, tea, caffeine etc. If it is an addiction, it is healthy to cleanse yourself once in a while. So why not start now?
3. Give up swearing, a classic. If you know you swear a lot and would like to stop, monitor yourself and try to abstain.
4. Give up social media. What a crazy thought, right? If you don't want to give it up completely and still tend to overuse try deleting your apps off of your phone and see how that works.
5. Fast from negativity. I'll be the first one to admit that this is probably the hardest. It is so easy to get angry when things arent going your way, when you were late to work, or didnt get a the grade you wanted on your exam. Take everything as a learning lesson, and for all the bad that might have happened in a day also think about the good.
Giving
1. Give your time away. By this I mean take the time to talk to someone else who needs it, lend that pen you know you won't get back to a classmate who needs it.
2. Collect all of those old clothes you have and give them to goodwill, or donate them somewhere. They will do so much more good than sitting in your closet collecting dust.
3. Give yourself silence. May sound weird, but how often are you actually just completely alone and give yourself time to gather your thoughts? No music, no Netflix, just complete self-reflection even for five minutes.
This isn't the holy grail of lists of things to give up for Lent. But it is different than you are used to thinking of giving up. If you still plan on giving up some sort of food that is also a huge step. As long as it is something that will positively affect your life and possibly add a good routine to your days.
