I'm sure I've mentioned the superior training in guilt I had growing up. It was an art form in my home. Now you'd think as an independent adult I would be either living the guilt filled life or be fully rebellious and guilt free.
How far from right you would be in both cases. Seems I have found a"happy" mid gound. Alternating between loving my life as I live it and wallowing in guilt over personal choices.
Leave it to me to keep the worse of both choices.
Today as I face down that annual season of guilty retrospective (aka: Lent) I am thinking there must be a more productive way to spend this time of preparation.
Some give things up for Lent some chose to take works on. Always the guilty over-achiever, this year I'm doing both multiple times & ways.
1. Giving up my daily $1 coffee x 5 days a week.
2. Giving that $40 to the ELCA World Hunger program.
3. Giving up my steady diet of fictional novels for entertainment.
4. Taking up reading a faith study on the Cross. I might even finish reading those other two faith based books I started reading last year yet never finished.
Sometimes I think Lent is worse than New Years for incomplete vows. Although My New Year's resolution to do my diet better is still intact. Even if it's not as successful as I'd like. My Lenten resolution could be a bigger struggle.
You will notice I'm not giving up the chocolate, wine or shopping. Realism is a factor in our choices after all. The question at this point is; Does giving stuff up cause us to compensate with new "bad" habits?
Not eating a bit of chocolate occasionally during lent then devoring all the chocolate bunny in sight on Easter morning is not a good compensation/offering.
BTW me without a daily cup of coffee for 40 days may also not be pretty. My plan of replacing the caffeine with a shot of 5 hour energy drink will not be cheap. But that's another blog.
