Lent

I always give things up for Lent.  Always tried to be creative.  Last year - the year before? - I gave up the Internet.  Made for a less interesting 40 days, and it didn't do the things I thought it would, like impel me to spend more time with books and music.  Or one year, alcohol.  Which didn't make my life much less interesting, but it made me less interesting - or so I was told.

This year, I'm giving up giving up things for Lent.  I'm continuing to indulge in the usual give-up candidates, and with each one thinking, is this really a vice, or is it a virtue... Because someone (with a lot more piety than I have) once told me:  you don't give up the bad things for Lent, you give up the good ones.  Otherwise it isn't sacrifice, it's self-improvement.