A friend recently told me that he never was that interested in alcohol. Oh, he has the rare glass of wine or cocktail, but he wouldn’t care if someone told him he couldn’t have another in the rest of the life. “For me,” he said, flipping open his container of nicotine mints, “it’s always been tobacco. Have a cigarette?”
I declined. But it got me thinking about the weak points we all have, and why they vary so 
much. All the cigarettes I’ve had in my whole life wouldn’t add up to a pack. And while there were times I should have worried about my alcohol intake, right now I’m with my friend; going without it isn’t a challenge.
It is, however, a real struggle not to play computer Hearts or Free Cell or Minesweeper or delve into Facebook’s Farmtown or SongPop, despite recognizing them all for the time sinks they are. I find myself reading less on my Kindle to avoid the temptation of Monopoly. I haven’t played any of these games since Fat Tuesday, nearly thirty days ago. I know with my obsessive personality, they’re not good for me. But it’s still hard.
And we won’t even get into my inability to eat just one piece of chocolate or have just one potato chip, which is why my best strategy is not to have even one.
We all have our small vices, and maybe that’s good. They help to relax us. It’s when they turn into full-blown obsessions and addictions and habits that they steal time we could be spending with God or his people. Maybe that’s why we try to leave behind unpleasing behaviors or incorporate more positive ones in our lives during Lent, because our time on earth is truly “lent”… and once spent, can’t be repurchased.
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