Lent

So in the midst of basking in my post-marathon glow (you didn't really think I could post without mentioning the marathon, did you?), Ash Wednesday happened. As so often comes up in my poorly-timed life, I hadn't completely planned ahead, so had to hastily pull together the fragments of Lenten possibility that had been floating around in my brain since New Year.

And while I don't share my chosen "fasts" publicly, I will say this: Decreasing my Facebook time is on the list. I have a few specific actions in mind to accomplish this, and the reason, of course, is that it takes up far too much of my time and attention. On the one hand, it does combine the ease and speed of email, chat, and blogging all into one user-friendly webpage. But that doesn't change that fact that it sucks hours from my life, hours that could be better spent on pretty much anything else.

And yet-- and yet, it has not been easy. Facebook is my go-to Internet activity. I catch myself loading the page, only to force myself to close it because I've already been there and done everything that I intended to do for one day. I keep sneaking extra moments to see if anyone has answered a message that I sent, or to see if the "clever" comment I made on a friend's status was well-received. Sigh.

I think a year will come that I'll have to give up the Internet altogether, just to break the habit of spending all my spare time finding out what the rest of the world is up to. In the meantime, this small step is proving difficult enough.