I always had to be the rebel. I followed life’s path to a certain degree, but in my own way. Not that I tried to be rebellious, most of the time. I wanted to make sure certain things made sense, and that I understood why I was doing them. The most obvious was my conversion to begin with—I’d been told “believe this, this is the truth,” and when I started asking Why, I discovered more answers (and more questions) than I’d expected. And the Church.

It was the same when I started doing Lent. Most people give something up, but not me. I wanted to do more, be more devout, spend more time in prayer. These things are fine and good on their own, but maybe I was missing the point. When people asked “what are you giving up?”, I’d provide the semi-snarky answer of “being lazy.” Rather than veg in front of the TV, I would read more. Rather than mindlessly scroll the Internet, I would take that time to pray.

But it’s not helpful to start with what you’re going to do. All along, I should’ve started with the giving up part. Once you decide to give something up, other things fill in that space. Things like all those intentions.

I botched Lent this year, despite my good intentions. It started out fine: I intended to see the beauty in the world by taking more pictures, at least one a day; I wasn’t going to snack after dinner. There was a third that I’ve already forgotten. (This isn’t boding well for me.) But to be effective, I should’ve turned it around: give up something, like everyone else does, so those good things naturally fall in place of them. One year I gave up TV after 9:00 p.m. That was probably my best Lent, because it forced me to something else—something good—and I also got to sleep at a normal time.

Not all is lost this year, though. We still have Holy Week to look forward to. So I will give up screen time between working hours and dinner, because I stare at a computer enough during the day. I will give up snacking after dinner, again, because snacks are the very least I can sacrifice. And in that time, the world’s beauty and prayer will easily fall into place.