Ten Way to Give Up Self-Stalking for Lent

I'll admit– I'm not exactly a devout Catholic. Heck, I may even be a lapsed one. And even in my more religious days (yes, yes– I was once fairly religious) I didn't quite understand lent. Don't get me wrong– there are a lot of things I think people should give up…for the good of the planet, for the good of each other, for their own good!

But to give something up just to torture myself? Well, to be honest– that sounds kinda narcissistic. Like, with all the problems and pain in the world, I don't think G-d cares whether or not I miss gummy worms or fried tofu.

I'm all for giving up stuff for forty days, though! That's the perfect amount of time to affect real change in one's life. At the very least, forty days is a good long time to see how things might be different, how I might be different. Really, it's a genius concept!

So, even though I haven't been to church in years, I'm going to give something up this lent: self-stalking. Sure, my sacrifice won't help the planet or humanity, but it will help my piece of mind. One could say that instead of torturing myself for lent, I'm making a conscious decision not to torture myself.

So here it is: my lent-ly pledge of choices to better serve my emotional and psychological wellbeing.

I, Daisy Harris, will not:

1. Google myself. (I mean literally, not euphemistically. I'll continue to Google myself euphemistically as needed.)

2. Read any reviews of my books on GoodReads, Amazon, or elsewhere.

3. Go to sites specifically for the purpose of checking whether reviews are present.

4. Backtrack from YouTube to see how people clicked on my videos. Those viewers watched for their own reasons, and those reasons are none of my business.

5. Check my sales data.

When tempted to do said things, I will instead:

1. Buy groceries and create meal plans involving the foods I bought.

2. Cook! (Honestly, some of those cans have been in the cupboard for years.)

3. Clean. (Stalk dust, not self.)

4. Exercise! (Exorcise the demon of self-stalking!)

5. Ride my bike somewhere instead of drive! (Because I may as well do something good for the planet while I'm at it. If G-d were paying attention, I'd bet he'd like that.)

6. (Bonus) WRITE! Blog posts, manuscripts, short stories, free reads! It doesn't matter, so long as I'm channeling energy outwards instead of obsessing inwards. Wait…is inwards even a word?

Wish me luck, guys. Forty days or bust! Are you giving anything up for lent? What does it mean to you?