Every year at Lent, I strive to be a better person. For those of you unfamiliar with this Catholic season, it's the 40 days leading up to Easter (and it also starts the day after Pancake Tuesday!). The point of Lent is to emulate Jesus when he spent 40 days fasting in the desert, and to give up something that is important to you, or, do something each day to make yourself a better person. I try to tackle both of those every lent. Give something up, do something good.
My "give something up" has been the same every year for the past 4 years. Stop swearing. It's not only one of my greatest vices, it's also a vice I enjoy very much. I have a potty mouth... you may have heard! :) Four years ago, the girls in my office decided to join me, and we gave a quarter for every curse word to charity. 40 days later, and over $100 to charity, we obviously were not curse free!
My "do something good" to make myself a better person was to be more positive. I would looooove to be one of those people who see the positive side of everything, and can smile no matter how bad things get. But I am not. I curse instead. And cursing is 1) something I'm trying very hard to give up and, 2) not very positive.
The cursing (or lack thereof) was going quite well. I very diligently substituted non-curse words when the need to cuss arose. "Oh for bugger's sake!" "Holy crap-a-doodle-do!" "Oh, for the love of popsicles!" and, "Shut the front door!" I even had Gracie walking around the house yelling "holy guacamole!" And then I went back to work. And then I bid farewell to Lenten Promise #1. It's not that I'm not still trying. I am!! I'm just failing miserably. When computer systems are constantly crashing in the middle of my settlement proposals, and clients are calling and asking the silliest questions possible, and court documents are being rejected because I can't remember how the heck (see, a non-cuss word!) to complete the darn forms after being away for 7 months, it's hard not to let out an f-word. Or an s-word. Or a word that starts with any letter of the alphabet that I can make sound like a curse word!
The being positive thing is my biggest challenge though, because it's not just a matter of substituting one word for another. It's a whole state of being. A whole mental challenge. And I positively suck at it!
I wake up at 6:15 in the morning. My clothes are already picked out, the lunches and breakfasts are already made, and I just pack and go. So far, so good. I even manage to stay positive through most of the day at work. Then on the drive home, things start to brew in my brain. It must be the 30 minutes of alone time in the car. I start to think back about the dumb things that people have said, stupid issues that need to be dealt with, and a myriad of other useless things to think about. And I start to get cranky. Of course, by this time, I'm also exhausted, which doesn't help. When I get home, I'm frustrated that I still have to cook supper, clean up the dishes, get the girls to bed, make the lunches for the next day, make the breakfasts for the next day, pick out my clothes, pack the bags, and do a workout (all with help, mind you!). It's usually almost 8:00 before I have a chance to sit down. And that makes me super cranky. This is where I struggle to focus on the positive things. I have a job! I have two kids! I have a loving husband! I have legs to stand on! All of the things that I take for granted and that could be worse. And when I point it out to myself that I could be more positive, and I have lots to be grateful for, then I get mad at myself for not being more positive... which is, you know, not very positive of me!
So as I struggle through another 40 days of Lent, being positive and curse-free, I only ask that stupid things stop happening so I can stop being cranky about them. And as for the cursing... well that's a life-long battle I have to overcome before Gracie's vocabulary adds any more four-letters words! I'm just thankful I'm not paying quarters anymore, or else we'd be poor! :)
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