I'm not a particularly religious person, but I do find myself giving something up for Lent each year. Today being Ash Wednesday, I'm wondering what bad habits/tendencies you would consider giving up. I have been very ambitious and decided to give up sweets **and** beer (for purely weight-loss reasons).

How about you? What do you want to change, and how long do you think you'll last?

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Answers

I'd like to give my worrying issues. I worry myself sick over everything and I think now would be as good a time as any to quit that. It's time-consuming, annoying, and gets nada accomplished. I'm not really sure how to stop - I keep telling myself to but nothing seems to be working thus far. We'll see if maybe by the time I turn 20 I can stop wondering if that guy's gonna call and just get on with my life.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

shit....I was suppose to be in church this morning............

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I thought about this long and hard this year, and...umm...I'm giving up the 'Net. Starting next Monday, because that's when Orthodox Lent begins. (I figure if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right, right?)

I don't know how long I can do this for, but I have to believe I can do it for the entire time, or there's no use in trying.

Good luck to all of you.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I wonder if you could say you were giving up the Net for Lent and then not have to work until Easter.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I'm trying to give up tobacco. I stopped smoking about two months ago, but now i'm trying to give up my nasty-ass Skoal habit.

At the moment, I'm considering replacing it with either chewing my fingers off, or setting myself on fire.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I'm giving up potato chips, Cheetos, Fritos, Doritos, all those nasty things that live in cellophane bags and call my name as I walk down the aisles of the supermarket. I love those salty, crunch, fat- laden "foods." I'm hoping the fact that it's Lent will give me extra motivation to stay away from them, so I can take off those last pounds.

I'm also giving up skydiving and scuba diving, but since I've never actually *done* either of those things, I don't anticipate any problems keeping to that goal.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Well, I'm not really religious anymore, but this year I've decided to try to stop talking shit about people during Lent. I've done very well so far, but of course it's only been a few hours. And the most annoying woman in the office is out of town.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Meat, except for sushi. I've just been eating too damn much Burger King lately.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I'm giving up chocolate. My favorite was the year I gave up Coca- Cola... and promptly hooked myself on Diet Coke, which I reasoned is just clearly NOT the same thing. And it isn't! So I didn't cheat. Really.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

You know, this is a pet peeve of mine and everyone will think I'm being inflamatory when I am not BUT, I can't stand it when someone gives up some piddly thing for Lent.

I am a Diet Coke addict, but giving up Diet Coke or chocolate or whatever - that is just offensive! Lent is observed to commemorate Christ's wandering, while fasting, for 40 DAYS. He gave up everything, then showed back up, on purpose, for his own murder, people. Whether you're particularly religious or not, that is what it's about.

I prefer to take something on for Lent. This year, I am going to do a whole "treat my body as a temple" thing for the next 40 days. I am going to try and eat a balanced diet (for once) and exercise, in some way, every day. (Billy Blanks is part of my Lenten plan, y'all.) I am also going to try and get every medical check-up I need and you know...moisturize and floss every day...get good sleep every night...all that.

Is it a dumb idea? I don't know. I do know, it will be very hard for me - a true challenge and a radical lifestyle change. And I think that's what Lent is about. Making a big change that will cause you to reflect inwardly. Damn. I'm going to miss Cheetos...

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I'm giving up coffee. This is going to be damn hard for me, because I love coffee, and I get caffeine headaches when I don't drink it, but I'm going to do it anyway. Last year, I gave up fried foods, which was pretty hard (so many random things that you don't even think about are fried), and then the year before that I gave up cheese, which I put on or in just about everything. But it's 4pm now, and I don't have a caffeine headache yet, so that's a good sign.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I have given up something for Lent nearly every year since I've been an adult... which is pretty funny considering that is about the time I became a pseudo-pagan! (And I wasn't Catholic to start with anyway.) But this year (a) Ash Wednesday totally snuck up on me, and (b) I just can't think of anything from which to abstain. I stopped eating meat years ago and never looked back, chocolate no longer likes me back so I've all but given that up, and I've been on Weight Watchers for over a year, so I have given up or cut back on so many things I have run out of things to give up with difficulty. Maybe beer would be hard to give up, but I don't really drink all that much anymore anyway. Ditto cigarettes. Giving up wearing black would be next to impossible; I'd have to run around naked and no one needs to see that! If I gave up the Internet I would have to kill myself. Maybe I should do what Allison suggested and take on a new project. Going to Big Bend and hiking for a week (which I leave to do on Friday) might give me a good start -- maybe I should promise myself to try to maintain that level of activity even after I get back? I don't know. I tell ya, I am totally at a loss this year. Maybe this should be the year I give up giving up things for Lent!

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Oops, I forgot to go to Mass, and I ate meat yesterday.

I'm giving up chocolate. I've done this for Lent before, and it made me feel really virtuous, and made Easter Sunday a fantastic orgy of chocolate.

Good luck Leigh Anne - beer and sweets is a big call. I could never give up sweets.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

Catholic girl.....born and raised......catholic school.....communion...confirmation....the works.

I disagree with Allison. What is piddly to you may be an absolute necessity to someone else. Like whoever said coffee......If you are a total coffee drinker, first thing in the morning, million cups a day, I am quite sure that giving up coffee would be more than appropriate. Same for cokes, chocolate, diet coke, whatever. If you miss eating, drinking or doing it, than you might have to suffer a little without it. Isn't that the whole idea? My mom gave up diet coke for lent once. Talk about hell......she doesn't drink coffee, diet coke is her coffee.....she suffered plenty.

It is great that you are doing the whole temple/body thing....wonderful for you.

But if your intentions are to observe lent, anything you actually "give up" is fine.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

I agree with mis. Not everyone can do things on Christ's level, and he knows it. :)

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

Doh! I missed mass yesterday too...so apparently I'm giving up Church for Lent :) Chris
The Eclipse

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

My mom's a lapsed Catholic, so I grew up no religion like in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. I'm totally fascinated by the Lent talk every year.

Last year was my first Ash Wednesday in New York and I just didn't know what to make of all the people walking around with schmutz on their forheads. It took me half the day to figure that out. I guess Californians are too lazy or vain to do the ash on the forehead thing, because I never saw it there.

I just wanted to say to the coffee drinkers, though, what you describe as a caffeine-deprivation headache sounds just like what I experience when I don't have enough fluids. If I haven't had any water by 3, I get nauseaus and have the most horrible headache. It's worse even than when you forget to eat. Maybe part of the problem is that you're not replacing coffee with water. In my observation, hardly anyone drinks anywhere near the recommended 8 8-ounce glasses a day. I hope it helps.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

Um, I'm a California girl, not lazy but way vain.

We always wore the ash.

Just FYI

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

I think California just has fewer practicing Catholics than New York, at least in the cities. I grew up in a small town with a fairly large Catholic population, and I remember plenty of kids in high school who went around with ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. I rarely see it now that I live in a city. And I don't remember EVER seeing it in L.A.

As for the caffeine headache thing, no, it has nothing to do with dehydration. It has something to do with blood vessels constricting, and it's related to the same phenomenon that makes Tylenol work better when you take it with caffeine. I drink 10-12 glasses of water a day and I'm very familiar with the symptoms of dehydration, and it is nothing like the headache you get when you're addicted to caffeine and you give it up.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

Hmmm...

I'm not catholic, but I've just decided to go for it this year. I'm taking on vending machines and meat. Dad keeps telling me "Even Catholics can eat fish!" but I'm persistent. So far.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

I'm giving up giving up things for Lent. ~Sophia

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

Um, Alison? Jump down off the soapbox, honey. Giving up 'piddly' things for Lent is the same as giving up massive things for Lent - the whole point is to deprive yourself of something you usually enjoy, and also to use the time to reflect. So giving up chocolate or giving up cigarettes is pretty much just lipservice unless you also actually go to church occasionally during Lent, say a few prayers, that kind of thing. I've been a practising Catholic for 25 years now and that's who I've always understood it to work. Whether I choose to give up sweets (easy) or reading for pleasure (v. hard), the effect is the same.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

ice cream.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

You don't have to be Catholic to give stuff up for Lent. Anglicans do it too (that would be Episcopalians if you're American). Catholic Lite- all the pomp, none of the guilt.

I gave up coffee one Lent, back when I was much less addicted than now. Not doin' that again, uh uh.

Gave up chocolate a time or two... might do that this time.

Many give up alcohol. But a church organist I know claims to have visited the Rector and his wife one Sunday in Lent, and was served a birdbath-sized martini. And an explanation, "ah, but every Sunday in Lent is a little Easter," which if true is very boss!

The way an Anglican nun explained it to me is, one gives up a physical pleasure, or takes on a task, as a privation/meditation. And it's not fair to choose something that has a corollory agenda- her example being "I want to lose weight, so I shall give up cream cakes!"

Two women I know took ON something difficult: going to matins every day of Lent. That involved kneeling on a chapel floor for twenty minutes every single morning, at 7am. Way harder than forgoing chocolate, IHMO.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

This year for Lent, I will give up two very important things. The first is that I plan to give up is listening to my mother's insane daily diatribe on my answering machine about anything and everything from how beautiful her dog, Lucy, is to her circus freak ex-husband (one arm 300+ lbs) to how the lady at the Chanel counter pissed her off this week and how she wishes Charles would come back and fire her. The other is that I think I will stop dating men who end up engaged and/or are already married, not my type because I am just tired of being single, gym freaks, shallow men, and losers with no jobs or Mc Careers. Hell, I'll just give up all men, and like that other girl take up something. Wome

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2000

for lent this year i plan on giving up catholicism.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2000

I was planning on giving up my soul.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2000

I'm giving up coffee, too. It's gonna be a long Lent :-/ I need to try to take on letting people know that they've hurt my feelings when they have ... or angered me ... rather than, say, talking smack about them to other people rather than confronting it first-hand. I always seem to prefer to wallow in my misery than to bring up an issue with someone, stupid weakness of mine.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

I was going to give up posting in online discussion forums but....

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

um, this is a hard one......sex? i give up sex. oh wait, i suppose i would have had to be getting some in the first place, eh? well then nevermind. :) i'm not giving up anything. unless of course an opportunity would arise..... :)

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Catholicism.

Nope - Mom didn't think it was funny either~

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2000