lent

Last year I went 40 days without video games. Yes.. 40 days. It's hard to imagine if you know me, but I pulled it off and then at the end of the 40 days, I went nuts on games and got sick from it from lack of sleep and food.

I thought about doing 40 days of no games again, but have decided against it.

Over the past few days I've been thinking about what else I could do, what the meaning of Lent is, and what would be something worth that which I rely heavily upon that I could offer up to God. See, gaming isn't heavily relied upon. If I didn't game, I would be watching TV, or renting DVDs, watching movies. It's just a form of entertainment.

In the last 3 days I realized that I heavily rely upon instant messaging. When MSN was down for a few hours I didn't know what to do. I felt as though I had been locked away from the rest of the world. I forgot about all the other lines of communication and sat there dumbfounded that I had no one to talk to.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I've decided to give up all forms of instant messaging. This includes Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AIM. I'm still kinda iffy on the email part. I use email for work, so I can't exactly give that up. My parents communicate with me via email as well.

I feel that this decision will force me to open the lines of communication with others in different forms, and rather than spend time chatting online, I could spend more time with God in that way. Ie: when I feel lonely, I will turn to God instead of trying to find someone who is willing to chat with me.

Easter is March 27th, which means on February 18th I will stop using instant messaging.

[edit]It occurred to me just now that February only has 28 days. Thus I need to begin my Lent February 16th, not 18th.[/edit]