What I Have Learned - Take Twenty-Three

I have learned that the world would be a better place if we all just payed it forward a little more.

As most of us know, it is Lent season. Social media sites are a buzz with discussions of what we are all giving up for Lent. Many of us, myself included, are not Catholic, yet partake in giving something up for 40 days. I am sure the reasons are varied, and most are positive, but it really got me thinking. Isn't this a little backwards?

Now, I am not knocking the actual celebration of Lent. Religion aside, this is more generalized than that.

We are all so willing to give up something for forty days. I have seen things from cookies to sweets, attitude to anger. Even my own sacrifices have been pretty trivial, bagels and swearing the past two years. But instead of giving up something, what if we all vowed to DO something the next forty days?

What would happen if we took paying it forward as seriously as giving things up? Is it really easier to give up a food product than to be extra nice, or go out of our way, or GIVE a little more? Why are we so willing to take away, but have a hard time GIVING away?

Perhaps when our forty days have finished, we can make a new promise. Forty days of paying it forward. What a better place we could make the world, if even just forty days at a time.