Giving Up Stuff

Happy Mardi Gras!!
I'm going to give up something this year for Lent, as I usually do. I've figured that if I write about it, it'll be easier to keep, because it's down in writing and people other than myself know about it. Last year for Lent, I gave up chocolate because I was eating way too much of it. I did the same thing the year before, but I sort of failed both those years because someone told me that Nutella was made out of hazelnuts (which is it) and thus didn't qualify as chocolate. It turns out that Nutella does have chocolate in it, so I gave up chocolate and continued to....eat chocolate.
So this year, I'm going to give up candy and Nutella. I think that having that stuff is really a luxury and we really don't need it. Certainly our body doesn't need it. It's nice, and it makes me happy to eat candy sometimes, but there are other ways to make myself happy, and I'll have to figure out what those are. Maybe one of them will be staring at Benedict Cumberbatch's beautiful face. I'm also going to be going to a Wednesday night Bible study with my dad. The reason for Lent is really to give up something that is really valuable for God, and, with the time that you have, you spend it with Him, and that's what I plan to do.
It's certainly going to be a struggle. I'll probably realize how much junk food there is out there in the world. I'll also probably find loopholes (example: Nutella),  which is really just part of human nature. Whenever we're placed in a difficult situation, we try to get out of it or find a way to manipulate the problem to get what we want. I don't want to do that this year! I WILL NOT EAT NUTELLA!!!
It's interesting, because I wrote about my new years' resolutions (of which I already broke one, I know), and now I'm writing about Lent. I wonder a lot about what I'm going to learn in these next 40 days.