*%#^ing Lent

So, I like the idea of lent. I like the true idea for the wrong reasons. Meaning, I feel like giving up something that you crave, something you thought you couldn't live without, turning yourself into a tortured soul, burning for your sins, and trudging through the 40-some-odd days, does less to make you a better person as much as it does boost your self esteem, knowing you had the strength to get through it. And most likely binge like woah once Easter hits. Is that healthy? Maybe. But it makes you feel like you accomplished something. And who doesn't enjoy the feeling of accomplishment?

But I am looking at this from a different perspective. I have partaken in lent before, mainly as a part of a buddy system, 'I'll give this up with you as your moral strength,' type thing. But these days, I'm more interested in the social/literary experiment of it all. So I started brainstorming. Not something so necessary in my life that giving it up would be life-altering, since, who wants to do that? I am more interested in seeing how something less than essential would resonate in my every day life. But since that is not very impressive, I decided to take on two. Yes. Two.

I thought about giving up eating out for dinner. But would just mean more of a healthier life while seeing my friends less. No one wants that. I thought about giving up Facebook, but anyone reading this that knows me knows this isn't possible. Nor would it make much of a commentary. I thought about giving up lying. Then I thought about giving up the truth. But once someone finds out about something like that, it throws everything off. And since I wanted to write this very blog post about my sacrifice, that couldn't work. I thought about giving up Purgatory, but why ruin a good thing?

So I settled on this:

I will give up swearing. Or cussing. Or however you want to describe it. I have a bit of a loose tongue, and I think it might make some of a difference to get away from that for a while. Maybe it will fit into my new found country lifestyle. Maybe it will affect me for longer than 40 days. Maybe people will laugh more hearing that I want to picrackle their jabangbang. Who knows. But I am excited.

In addition, I am giving up approximately one hour of free time, most commonly translated as TV time, to sit down and write in this thing. Hopefully about some occurrence including my lack of cursing, but also ranging on a slew of topics.

So there you have it. 40 Days of me (apparently they don't count Sundays in lent, who knew... I guess I could have picked Purg). 40 consecutive days of my wandering thought tangents, new experiences, and maybe, just maybe, something worth talking about.

Enjoy.