Monday, March 11, 2013

Lent 2013

Today is the first day of Lent (or rather, it was when I first started this post).  I never observed (celebrated?) Lent growing up, so this has been a new idea to me as an adult.  I'm not even sure what the whole entire thing is about, other than people usually give up something for the 40-ish days until Easter.  And you're usually trying to pick something that is a challenge because it's supposed to be a sacrifice.

Now, I've been thinking about what I could sacrifice.  I could give up one of the usual things: caffeine, chocolate, soda, fried foods, etc. and all those would be a sacrifice, but I'm thinking I might go for something more fundamental, which would definitely be a challenge, but I'm not sure it would count as a "sacrifice".

The idea I had on my way to work is that I could give up worrying for Lent.  I've been trying to develop/foster/have a closer relationship with God lately and I think that consciously not worrying would be beneficial to that.  I want to trust God and worrying certainly shows that I don't trust with all my heart.

I'm reminded of the blurb in Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek where he mentions that a vast majority of the things we worry about either are (a) out of our control or (b) never happen.  But they consume a lot of our mental energy. This could help free up my mind quite a bit, if I can be successful.


Now, how to actually stop worrying is another topic, but I think that's what I'm going to have to figure out!

Update as of 3/11/13:
Here's what I've been doing:  When I catch myself starting to worry about something, I make myself stop and just start thinking about something else that is unrelated to the the worry topic.

The result?  I've been much happier and less negative since the beginning of Lent.  At least I feel like I have been.  It's been pretty great actually.  I have a lot of self-doubt about almost everything in my life and this has really helped me not dwell on it because mostly, it's ALL IN MY HEAD.  My crazy, crazy head.  I'll update again closer to Easter about this.