Grab a Tuna Sandwich and Join Me

February 19, 2010

First Friday of Lent

So I finally know what I’m going to give up for Lent this year, or rather, what I am going to do to better myself. Sure I could go for the easy not-eating-candy-for-forty-days bit, or perhaps soda (which I don’t really drink anyway), or go totally masochistic and give up my coffee in the morning, but I decided to take an unconventional approach that I feel would be much more beneficial.

If I’m really honest with myself—and at my age it’s time to start being honest—I have to say that one of the biggest characteristics I lack is self-discipline. I’m driven, don’t get me wrong. I have mental laundry lists of things I’d like to do, things I want to do, things that need doing, and goals I’d like to accomplish. If I start a project for someone else I have great follow-through. If someone else assigns me a task and a due date, I’m more than happy to complete it on time. No, what I lack is that self-motivating chip that gets me to clean the house on a regular basis, do the laundry before everyone runs out of underwear, send out query letters that will no doubt be rejected time and again, and blog with any kind of consistency. I’m not particularly consistent in these areas. At all, actually.

And then I get behind. And then things feel overwhelming, causing me to put them off even more because all I can think of is “where do I even start?” It’s a vicious cycle and I’m getting dizzy.

So this year for Lent I’m going to work on my self-discipline by blogging every day for the next 40 days of Lent. That’s not a particularly difficult thing to try and do, you might say. You’re a writer after all.

Well, I suppose I could try to clean the house every day for forty days but it would be difficult to document, you not being in my house and all, not to mention the eight pairs of hands that would undo my did work making it appear that I didn’t actually do anything when in fact I did.

This will be difficult, trust me. Try coming up with something meaningful and funny to say everyday for forty days! What a chore! You may be reading about how I flossed my teeth that evening, or how the kids got into a farting contest, or what kind of gas mileage my husband got on Prius this week. It might be that boring.

And since I’m going to be blogging everyday for forty days, they won’t be as long as usual. Which is great, you might think. I never have time to read your lengthy blogs anyway. You’re funny for about 10 minutes, and then I have laundry to do.

I get it. Another head’s up, these blogs might not be perfect. There might be a word missing, or grammatical errorss, or even many, many,,, many, misplaced commas.,. I do that when I’m in a hurry. Like tonight. If so, keep your comments (and judgments) to yourself. Yes, I can write and proofread. But trying to write perfectly is one of the things keeping me from writing at all. At some point you just have to say screw it.

The idea struck me tonight and I knew I had to start TONIGHT because as it is I’m already two days behind. (Genius takes time.) So even though I’m exhausted and it’s 9:40 p.m., and my ass hurts from working out today, and I have to get up at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday to work out before my daughter’s cosmic bowling party, I’m here, typing this.

That’s how self-disciplined I am. Or want to be rather. Join me on my forty-day Lenten blog pilgrimage to self-disciplination. I made that word up.

It sounds nice.