Tag: Lent

Lent 2021

StarrLeave a comment

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! With Easter Sunday comes the end of Lent, and at the last minute this year, I decided to continue my years-long tradition of giving up a bad habit, partially inspired by the fasts and self-denial of luxuries and vices of my observant friends and by a need to kick-start some better habit forming after 2 separate new year celebrations.

This year, I decided to try to give up one thing and add another:

➖ Twitter
➕ Daily journaling
➕ Daily meditation

As longtime readers may be unsurprised to hear, I did much better with giving up Twitter than I did with daily journaling and meditation this year.

Twitter

When I first joined Twitter over 10 years ago, it was primarily so I could enter giveaways that were exclusive to the platform. “Like and retweet for a chance to win VIP tickets to Kollaboration DC!” It was my least-used social media platform for a very long time.

I think when I severely reduced my Tumblr usage, Instagram filled that void but so did Twitter. Especially during this pandemic year, Twitter became one of if not the primary source for me to get news, memes, resources, and relief in the form of cute animals and babies. The vibes on Twitter more closely resemble Tumblr than Instagram has, and on top of that, I could interact directly with celebrities, journalists, political figures, and more.

During a year when the news about the pandemic was changing really quickly, my Twitter browsing became really unhealthy, so when Shrove Tuesday rolled around and I wondered what bad habits I had left that would benefit from some cold abstinence, Twitter was an obvious candidate.

The first week or so made it clear this was the right choice. Whenever I felt restless, or bored, or stressed, I found myself opening a new tab on my computer and typing “t-w-i-” before catching myself and stopping. I still got the news of the day, and not getting it the precise moment it broke was not as much of a problem as I thought it was. Nor was missing out on memes, or random Twitter discourse that didn’t quite amount to news or quite amount to memes. Sometimes I found myself wishing I could share articles or other links that I liked, but it’s been interesting to reflect on why I think I “should” or “need” to share.

Over 46 days, I don’t know that I necessarily want to return to Twitter, and its toxic messes that so often seeped into my Internet life. After all, people still post Twitter screenshots that are impactful or funny or cute to my other social media platforms, so I wasn’t even missing too much.

I did break a handful of times to look at specific Twitter accounts, like a coworker’s who told me it was her last day but didn’t tell me where she was headed because she announced it publicly on her Twitter account, or another person who I had spoken with over Twitter DM several weeks prior about interviewing at my company and I discovered had been hired. And two of those times, I did get lured in by the trending topics.

All in all, this was a really successful Lenten fast that I needed more than I realized. As much as I told myself that other people’s business and the news and even the hyperfast meme cycle did not stress me out, at least this year, it did, and unnecessarily so.

Daily Journaling

Unlike Lent 2020, daily journaling did not go very well this year. I was really hoping it would, because then my journal could come full circle from the daily habit of last year. But I often felt like I had nothing to write in my journal. The past few weeks, I’ve felt very numb. The days come and go, and before I’ve noticed, the sun has risen and fallen and risen and fallen and days and weeks have passed.

There were evenings I would think about my journal, visualize it sitting in my drawer, and feel guilty about not writing in it. I wrote in it more frequently than I did outside of a Lenten period but it was no where near daily. Still, I am glad to be continuing the documentation of this strange time in my life, and I’m glad that Lent encouraged me to write more. I don’t know what my journaling practice was look like afterwards, but I know it will continue even if not at the frequency I would like. I’ve been journaling for over a year now and see no reason to completely stop.

Daily Meditation

This was the biggest failure of Lent this year hahaha. I very rarely meditated at all during the past 6+ weeks and I don’t have a clear answer as to why. When I was meditating daily over the summer, I noticed a lot of benefit, but since then, it has been much more difficult for me to sit still with my thoughts and my breathing. During this year’s Lent, in particular, I often either felt too restless to meditate (yes, meditation would have helped with that and yet it does require an initial deposit of restfulness, doesn’t it) or I felt so completely zoned out already that meditation didn’t even occur to me, so away from myself did I already feel.

I know that meditation is a good practice and would benefit me a lot. I’m still trying to figure out a good way to let myself get into it more and better.

Did you give up anything for Lent?
Do you have suggestions for other things I could give up for future Lents or as a challenge to myself?

“carmen” by one of my favorite artists, Stromae – a great song and video about Twitter and social media

(End of) Lent 2020

StarrLeave a comment

As I’ve explained in my annual Lent posts, my lack of religious adherence has not prevented me from taking the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday to reflect on my life and my habits and try to change things for the better.

In the past, I’ve always eliminated a bad habit that I have trouble doing in moderation. (I’m an abstainer, not a moderator.) I’ve done this with a lot of success in the past but was having a hard time connecting with a bad habit to eliminate this year. I’ve seen folks do an additive Lenten practice rather than a subtractive one, but a former coworker really sold me on the idea when he told me he practices Reverse Lent every year. Every year, he commits to adding a new habit or practice every day of Lent. One year it was baking, and he committed to being a better baker (specifically of pies).

Originally, I thought I would try to add meditation as a Lenten habit this year. It’s something I used to be very good at but have gotten a lot less good at as I have gotten older and, to be frank, would benefit more and more from meditating. But it just didn’t quite stick. I told myself I would purchase a meditation app but got some analysis paralysis as to which one would be best for me.

One habit that has stuck, however, is daily journaling.

person holding on red pen while writing on book
Photo: fotografierende

Read More »

Lent 2019

Starr2 Comments

Happy Shrove Tuesday / Fat Tuesday / Mardi Gras / Pancake Day / Paczki Day / celebrate indulgence with your Catholic friends day!

Image result for paczki day
Behold: paczki (pączki), full of goodness and served by your local Polish baker

My Lenten tradition of quitting a bad habit has a lot to do with how I build habits. Even though I abstained from a formal Lent challenge last year, I described why and how I started observing Lent as a tradition in my 2017 post:

Although I am not Catholic, I have been observing Lent in my own way for the past few years. Lent is the third time at the beginning of the year that I check in on how I am doing with my self-improvement (with my New Year’s resolutions and Chinese New Year reflections being the first two). I take a look at a bad habit that I really want to address and abstain from it. Completely.

What started as a show of solidarity with my Catholic friends has become an honest admission of a bad habit I have and a commitment to doing something about it in a way that works for how I motivate myself.

This year, I am giving up mindless social media scrolling. While I wish I could give up social media altogether, like I did back in 2011, the main reason I’m not doing so this year is that many of my friendships are sustained via touches on social media. Sending memes and animal videos is a big part of maintaining friendships in this day and age, and more so now that I’ve moved to New York and am unable to see most of my close friends in person anymore. I also find a lot of my conversations with friends happening in Direct Messages in a social media application that I’m extremely hesitant to ghost on.

The problem with how I use social media isn’t that I have conversation threads with people across multiple apps. The biggest problem isn’t even my likes-chasing when I post content. (But that is a problem.)

It’s the zombified state I fall into when I’m scrolling my feed just to scroll. It feels almost like I’m dissociating; I am numb and barely thinking when I scroll Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I am just grazing on information, registering it the minimum amount, and still draining myself a bit mentally. I don’t feel good when I do this, and my partner actually has to physically separate me from my phone when I get in the zone scrolling. (To attempt to put a positive spin on this: I no longer have to have my laptop shut on my dissociative Tumblr-scrolling days anymore…)

My rules for using social media during Lent will be:

  1. No scrolling at all if/when I open a social media site: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram in particular, and includes autoplaying Instagram Stories
  2. No searching for content to discover, in particular Twitter Moments and Instagram Explore
  3. I am still permitted to post original content myself: posts, stories, tweets
  4. I am still permitted to interact with friends in Direct Messages
  5. I am still allowed to interact with friends’ content, but I can only discover that content intentionally
    • E.g. I wonder how my friend X is doing with their new cat, let me check their Instagram to see!
    • If, when I go to X’s profile, I see that they have also posted a Story, I can check that out

The big rule is NO SCROLLING. And if I keep posting content myself (like for the March Disneybound Challenge, which I’m barely doing, or my arbitrarily started March Mask Challenge), NO CHECKING for digital approval. The big goal is to use social media with intention, to close the app not feeling like a shell of a person but more connected with my friends, both my IRL friends and the Internet friends I only have because of these apps.

TL;DR This year, I am giving up mindless social media scrolling for Lent.

Many of my friends also like to incorporate an additive practice to Lent, taking this time to not just abstain from a bad habit but also to embrace a good habit they would like to practice more. One of my co-workers even does “Reverse Lent”, which is based on this concept and culminates with him and his friends sharing what they have added to their lives at the end: many pies baked, a long-neglected room finally painted, a blanket that was knitted over the course of the Lenten period.

So, in that vein, I will attempt to do some additive practices this year as well. My goal-setting may be getting a bit ambitious here, but I am much better at rising to a challenge for a finite amount of time than I am with keeping my resolutions, so it’s worth a try! I will be trying to work out every day of Lent. (Whether I will use those Sundays that Catholics typically do not include in the Lenten period as rest days remains to be seen…) As a backup goal, I will also be committing to doing my skincare every day of Lent. I tend to fall into a lazy routine of just splashing water on my face and slapping on SPF in the morning or moisturizer at night, but I want my skin to look great on my wedding day and I know I have the tools to make that happen. Plus, it’s good for me to take some time and do a routine, to step out of my thoughts and pat my face and do something for the sake of being kind to myself.

Are you observing Lent?
Is there anything you think you could cut back on, and if so, would you do better with moderation or abstinence?
How are you doing with any goals/intentions you’ve set for yourself for this year?

Lent 2017

StarrLeave a comment

Happy Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, and Pancake Day to any and all who are observing!

https://i0.wp.com/cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/11/Mardi-Gras-Hero-H.jpeg

Although I am not Catholic, I have been observing Lent in my own way for the past few years. Lent is the third time at the beginning of the year that I check in on how I am doing with my self-improvement (with my New Year’s resolutions and Chinese New Year reflections being the first two). I take a look at a bad habit that I really want to address and abstain from it. Completely.

I’m the kind of person who has a difficult time doing my vices in moderation. I had to quit chips for an entire year in order to get myself to stop eating them by the family-sized-bag-ful.

In fact, giving up chips was a Lenten initiative a few years ago. (Before I sank into chip addiction and had to give it up without waiting for Lent to come back around.) Lent has been a great way for me to seriously tackle habits of mine. And it works. Really well.

  • I actually struggle to inhale chips the way I used to.
  • I don’t watch nearly as much television as I used to, and I am a child who was partially raised by television. I used to keep time based on when my shows were on. Luckily, I was too lazy to catch up on 6 weeks of shows for the multitude of shows that I was watching in 2015, and I haven’t caught up since. It’s a little crazy to think about how addicted I was to watching all of my shows and think about how lazy I am now with regards to television.
  • I blog on a regular basis now, thanks in part to attempting to do so regularly during Lent.

This year, I wasn’t sure what to give up for Lent until last week. I have been trying to work out and be more active. Along with that, I’m also trying to eat a bit healthier. But I did have a pretty bad day where I ate the leftovers of an appetizer sampler that consisted of mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, and onion rings.

Basically, I inhaled a bunch of deep-fried food. And I felt absolutely sick to my stomach afterwards. Regardless of how healthily you are or aren’t eating, I think that eating that much fried food in 2 minutes will make you want to throw up.

So I decided it wouldn’t be a terrible idea for me to give up fried food for Lent this year.

https://affotd.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/fried-foods.jpg?w=500
Goodbye, deliciousness.

I don’t feel as apprehensive about Lent this year as I have in past years, like when I was giving up McDonald’s and chips, or when I gave up television but had to let myself have 3 shows to stay keep me company.

However, I do realize this will be a challenge. Many of my favorite foods are deep-fried:

  • Potato chips! (Goodbye again, my loves.)
  • Yeast doughnuts! (Cake ones are fine, but those fluffy yeast ones are where it’s at.)
  • Chicken McNuggets! (You know what’s better than 20 for $5? 40 for $9.)
  • French fries! (’nuff said.)

But I think that going without these deep-fried bits of deliciousness for 40 days and change (I didn’t know that Lent doesn’t include the Sundays when I started out) will be good for me.

I will also be abstaining from swear words during Lent. I prefer not to swear at all, and yet somehow I wind up doing more and more of it until the next year’s Lenten period rolls around. So this year, no swearing during Lent and hopefully none afterwards either!

Do you give up anything for Lent?
What’s a vice you need to cut back on, if you’re more of a moderation person?

Lent 2014

Starr2 Comments

I feel I need to first mention that I’m not Catholic, nor am I a Christian.

However, I think that Lent, like New Year’s, is a great time to start new habits or break old ones while you have the support of friends who are also doing the same. I often find that the habits I form during Lent do persist after Easter has passed, which means that a) I had a pretty bad problem before Ash Wednesday and b) I have helped resolve that problem by a lot!

Some things I’ve given up in the past:

  • 2011: Facebook & Tumblr
  • 2012: Chips & McDonald’s (McDonald’s had gotten too convenient with their fries & sweet teas)
  • 2013: …?? Did I give anything up last year? I don’t think I did actually?

Huh, I don’t think I gave up anything last year. But the previous 2 years I remember being tricky. I missed event invites on Facebook. I ate chips with all my sandwiches and soups! (I have a real passion for chips.)

This year, although I’m a little late, with a little bit of encouragement from Christine & Karen, I am going to be mostly giving up television.

This is maybe going to be my toughest lenten period yet (even tougher than the sad days I had to say no to chips). I have been mildly addicted to TV ever since I was little. My daily routines were structured around my TV schedule. Wake up, watch Sesame Street, Magic School Bus, take a nap, watch Big Comfy Couch, watch Bill Nye, watch Saved By the Bell, etc. etc.

Like a mild version of him, minus the awesome cowboy garb.
(This reference isn’t lost on you guys, right??)

Today, this manifests as me having several shows that I watch each week. I only watch a couple of them when they actually air, which means I typically end up holed up in my room with my computer, watching things on Hulu, CBS, or streaming them from less reliable sources. I also occasionally binge watch shows. Recently, I just finished watching Secret Diary of a Call Girl and I am caught up on Hannibal now.

I have a problem.
I need to solve this problem.

So, I have decided I will allow myself three shows to watch, and I may watch TV socially. But no more holing myself in my room watching TV just to pass the time. (Why do I watch so much New Girl? I don’t like it very much!)

Right now, I’m trying to figure out what shows I will allow myself to watch and I will try to watch them when they air, to minimize temptations to click to the next show and watch TV for 3 hours on my computer. The list right now looks like this:

  1. Once Upon a Time is non-negotiable. It is a problem in and of itself, but I have been waiting for the mid-season premiere and Lent is not going to stop me from watching it.
  2. How I Met Your Mother is finally almost over and I want to see it through. I don’t love it as much as I used to, so we’ll see if this stays on the list.
  3. Hannibal is the newest show I’ve started watching, and I only started because I was too lazy to not watch the season premiere. (I was already sat in front of the TV and I didn’t feel like changing the channel. Do you see how problematic this addiction is?) We’ll see if I keep watching it or if I’ll pick something else.

Other contenders include: Big Bang Theory (next runner-up), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Elementary, Modern Family, and Community (last runner-up). Also, it goes without saying that I can’t start any new shows.

<deep breath>
This will be a challenge, and it is meant to me.

In addition, I have been talking to some people about using Lent as an opportunity to add something of value and meaning to your life rather than trying to subtract something. My friend Jenn used the example of eating less beef or red meat. If you try to cut out red meat completely, you’ll likely eat a herd of cows on Easter Sunday. BUT, if you say you’re going to eat more turkey, it’s a bit easier to substitute a turkey burger for a beefy burger to reach that goal rather than turning down a beef burger with a pout on your face.

So! On that note, I am trying to snack healthier by just snacking on more fruits and veggies and making sure I eat fruits and veggies more often throughout the day. This goal will be harder to check up on, I think, but it will also be good for me.

This can’t be so bad if the creepy face is smiling. PLUS I have this plate in my house! Done and done.

(Also, I am aware that Sundays are essentially like “cheat days”, but I have pretty bad problems that require complete discipline. I won’t let myself have days to binge-watch TV. Or eat tons of chips.)

Do you typically give something up for Lent?
If so, what are you giving up this year?
If not, what are some habits you would like to increase/decrease in general?