Guest Commentary

By Christine Sackey

I've had friends over the years who “give up something” for Lent. While I don't go to a church that subscribes to this idea, I've always been intrigued by it. I gather that the sacrifice is supposed to make one a better person in some way. So I have adopted my own little custom for Lent: I give up a bad habit.

Most of my friends seem to give up some type of food. Giving up a habit is not as easy as giving up food, I have found. Habits are harder to detect and avoid because they're, well, habits. That means it's something you do pretty much unconsciously. It's difficult, and a little tiring, to try to be on guard 24/7 against a habit, and to stop yourself from doing it. Just try it sometime.

I usually give up the same habit every year, because it's one that annoys me in others and that I despise in myself, though I can't seem to stop. I try to give up whining. That's the word I choose to use, though there are lots of nifty synonyms: gripe, grumble, complain, beef, bellyache, crab, find fault, and nag, to name some. None of them sounds as bad to me, though, as “whine,” which I define to mean complaining about a situation instead of doing something about it.

We all like to grumble about things. And sometimes, you do need to talk to a trusted friend about a problem. That's a different situation entirely. The whining I am trying to stamp out of my life is the kind where you just go over the same complaints with everyone you meet, without ever trying to solve the situation you're griping about. I know people like that, and I've noticed that I tend to avoid them.

I want to be more like the people I enjoy being around myself. They always have something positive to say. If they do share their troubles, even that is done in a constructive way, to illustrate how they solved a problem similar to yours. You can feel the difference: When you've been around a positive person, you go away feeling better about yourself. When you've been around a whiner, you go away feeling worse.

I like to think that I'm making progress, but with habits, it's hard to tell. Complaining is such an unconscious thing, I'm not always aware when I'm doing it. And of course, this "giving up" thing is only for Lent, right? So come around after Lent, and we can share a good grumble about how hard it is to give up habits.