Guess what folks? Lent is here again! God is good, for sure. I mean, after all that binge eating & drinking during the Christmas/New Year season, as well as all the festive goodies during the Lunar New Year season, AND chocolates from Valentine’s Day, God gives us the *PERFECT* reason to control our desires for food and other worldly stuff, and focus on HIM.

Apart from the usual fasting and abstinence routine that I normally follow during Lent, I wanted to do something different. Something *slightly* more significant. Especially since I’m not *that* fond of meat anyway, so abstinence from meat doesn’t really affect me all that much. I was invited to join a Giving up Facebook for Lent group in Facebook. Although I didn’t join it immediate, it did set me thinking. Am I spending *too* much time on Facebook? Looking back, I realized that the answer was a big fat “YES“! I’ve been logging in religiously, processing requests received, checking on the statuses of my many Facebook friends, playing Lexulous (previously known as Scrabulous) and Bejeweled Blitz. I guess it probably will do me some good to give up Facebooking for the next 40+ days. At the very least, I’ll have more time to catch up on my reading required for the next big project at work. So yes, I’ve joined the group and pledged my determination to rid my attachment to Facebook, and do something productive instead. So if you noticed that I’m kinda quiet over at Facebook, you know it’s all for a good cause.

In addition, I’ll be giving up computer games, particularly PopCap games, for Lent too. I’ve currently got 8 PopCap games installed on my notebook, and I’m beginning to feel that I’m spending too much time on them. Less time on games, means more time to read, means more productivity.

Naturally, I considered whether I should give up Twitter and Plurk as well, but since they’re my primary connection(s) to my friends from across the world, I’ll probably maintain status quo on those, though I most likely *will* reduce the time I spend there. Thank goodness for Ping.fm, I can easily update all my social network sites at one go with the click of a button.

So there. That was my update on what I’m planning for Lent. What are your plans for Lent? Is there anything you’re giving up? Is there anything you’re doing extra? Let me know by leaving your comments. It’ll be interesting to “compare notes”

Tags: Announcements, Lent, life, musings, Personal