Keeping My Promises

Megan Trainor, Staff Writer

I have a confession: I have never kept a Lenten Promise

Now, with that said that does not mean that I have not made a valiant effort. One year I tried to give up swearing. I made the pact with my best friend, we swore we would not swear until Easter. We made it three weeks before we were so frustrated with our restraints that we threw in the towel, vowing to do better the next year.

Another year I gave up sweets and homework, my teachers were not merely as amused as I was. Needless to say that neither of those abstentions made it all the way to Easter.

This year I thought I would finally be old and wise enough that I may actually make it the whole 40 days with restricted social media usage. On any given day I found myself scrolling through the same posts on different platforms. It was ludicrous to be wasting time looking at something that never changed. My promise was to limit my usage to looking at the networks once a day. I lasted until spring break before I snap chatting, posting, and tweeting again.

I have always seen Lent as a chance to better myself in a plethora of ways. I abstain from meat on Fridays, most of the time. I start every Lent with the blessed ashes being spread across my forehead on Ash Wednesday and the hopeful idea that I may come out of this a better person.

The betterment also comes from recognizing my faults. We all have things that aren’t necessarily bad but aren’t the greatest habits. Admitting there is a problem is always said to be half the battle.

I never pick particularly difficult things to give up, though I can never seem to keep them. I believe it is habits that are to break, we create them and sustain them, they do not die easily. The self control and the actual wanting to change is the other hard part of keeping Lenten promises. I think this time of year we do get hopeful that there is a way to change and an easy solution to do so but the change we have to commit to more than 40 days a year.

Though the challenge of keeping my Lenten promises is as hard as trying to keep my New Year’s resolutions I always convince myself to do it anyways. They say it isn’t the destination, it’s the journey.

As Lent ends, I reflect on my promise to God and myself that I may very well stop using so much social media.  Although I have fallen short once again of my promises it does not mean that I cannot keep trying to stop using so much social media. There may always be next year but sometimes that seems far away; there is also always tomorrow to try again.