M. Suzanne Terry

My New Year’s Resolution has been enlightening. Annoying. Frustrating. And enlightening.

In focusing on a lot of things I want to stop doing, it has become more obvious what I want to start doing. I mean, I knew already what I wanted to start doing. Cooking at home more, eating better, actually going to the gym that I pay for or running or something at all active, writing every day, reading every day, living in a home that doesn’t look like some sort of natural disaster hit it…and the list goes on. There are moments of these things, but moments flee almost as soon as they arrive. I don’t just want moments of what I want my life to look like. I want a whole life of it.

The problem is that there are only so many hours in a day. Stupid time limits.

Lent for me has been a special time for increased reflection and mindfulness, and that will lend itself well to this process of whittling down what is extra to make room for what is good. The last month of following my resolutions has revealed a lot of things that I do that are just extras – things I do because I’m resting or restless or just wanting to do something but not too much, but that don’t necessarily add anything to my life other than pass the time. I am going to limit or eliminate these things altogether for the season. I won’t be playing Facebook games at all. I’ll be watching no more than one episode of TV a day (if that much) – so no weekend marathons for Lent. Those are the two main things that I do that don’t really add much to the pursuit of life as I want it to be, but I’m sure that there are others that Lent will reveal.

I think I am also going to cut out fast food for Lent. I might like it so much that I cut it out for good. I suspect that my eating it has a lot to do with my not doing a lot of other things (cooking, being active, etc.), so we’ll see how that goes. It may just turn into 40 days of soup, sandwiches, carrot sticks and bean dip, but we’ll see.