Giving It Up

I was all excited getting ready for this post, looking up stuff for Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday, until I realized I was a day behind and the post would actually go up on Ash Wednesday. Goodbye excess and partying, hello penitence and fasting.

But even though I won't be down in the French Quarter scrounging for leftover beads, it's not all sackcloth from here on out. Because there are some good benefits you can take from the season of Lent, regardless of your faith tradition.

1. Patience. When you have to wait forty days for the next bite of chocolate, you build up a tolerance for waiting.

2. Appreciation. When you finally get that first bite of chocolate after forty days of deprivation, it's a guarantee that you'll appreciate it.

3. Time. Want to stop snacking between meals? Excise swear words from your vocabulary? Forty days is time enough to change habits permanently if that's what you want to do.

4. Turn it on its head, and instead of giving something up, you can choose something with a positive bent. Instead of stopping a negative habit, why not take up a positive one? Instead of giving up candy, you can decide to eat a more healthy diet. Or I might choose to write or edit every day for forty days.

Do you celebrate Lent? If so, what are you giving up this year - or conversely, what good habit are you adding to your repertoire?