Lent

For those who are of Christian faith, every year for the 6 weeks that lead up to Easter it is a tradition to observe Lent.  For six weeks adherents are encouraged to give up something meaningful for the 6 week period.  There's no requirement to continue to abstain after Lent has passed, so it is in essence a New Year's Resolution that has an expiry date slapped onto it.

Whether you are religious or not, whether you're even Christian, the idea of giving things up for a period of time has been around for centuries in many forms.  I've written before about the concept of a detox and what it usually involves.  Lent in many ways can be considered a spiritual detox if you will.

I was raised Christian, although I would now consider myself not to belong to any religion in particular, mainly because there are problems I see in every religion and I prefer to have a personal faith that I can define and decide for myself what I believe and what I don't rather than being told.  I wasn't always this way however and there was a time when I followed the traditions the way they are supposed to be followed.  Lent was always something difficult for me to comprehend, not because of the task in itself but the act of choosing what you want to give up for 6 weeks.

Over the years I have picked silly things, junk food, alcohol, and various other vices that whilst there was some benefit in giving them up, ultimately for me personally I ended up swapping whatever I gave up for a place-holder instead.  For example if you give up take-out there's an inevitability for me personally that I will end up stuffing my face with other food that isn't exactly any better for me which defeats the entire purpose.

The religious origin of Lent however is intended to cause feelings of piousness.  There is meant to be reverence paid by giving up something meaningful and enduring the mental and physical absence thereof.  Still of all, that's not the way most people go about doing it, which leads you to the conclusion that traditions, whilst often seen as being something old and conservative and unchanging are actually fluid and forever changing, their body being defined by what those who observe them collectively agree.  The origin and the "right" way to do things is irrelevant, what is relevant is how the majority do things.  This is one of the many problems I have with religions - the fact that those who follow them are often zealous about their beliefs and yet they themselves don't actually adhere to the beliefs they profess to follow.

So if you gave up something this year for Lent, then all I would say is that you need to ensure you don't just replace whatever is absent with whatever can substitute it, if you don't do this then you may as well not have given up anything at all.