Lent

Today is the first day of Lent, not something I usually pay great attention to, but there was some company-wide discussion of it this morning that made me think of it a little. Lent during a pandemic feels bizarre - we are all already involuntarily giving up so much, forgoing anything else of our own volition seems incredibly unappealing. For many, dry January is the secular equivalent of the Christian tradition, although given I still haven’t had a drink yet this year, I am tempted to roll both into one and do a dry Q1.

I am a habitual giver-upper of things, perpetually struggling with moderation and always taking an all-or-nothing approach, to trying to achieve whatever it is I’m striving for. For Lent, perhaps a better approach would be to stop giving up things, or having to take up something new every day, and instead try to focus on finding some middle ground for once.