30 Days?

At the start of November, my household dove into a thirty-day challenge. What is it? We gave up beer for the entire month.

I know, some of you are thinking, beer? That's it? Why not give up chocolate? (I'm not sure I could ever do that). Why not take on a more physical challenge of exercise or learning a new hobby? Why not take on a challenge as creatively stimulating as my (future) sister-in-law, who wrote a blog post every day for thirty days? (Her blog, by the way, is A Planting of the Lord - seriously, check it out, she's an amazing writer) But, no, us beer snobs decided to give up beer completely for one month.

What is the purpose of this, you may ask. Well, for me it's because I've noticed that while I like the taste of beer, I don't like the way it affects me. Plus, sometime in the near future, a time will come when I have to give it up for nine months so why not go ahead and start early? I'm not an alcoholic nor have I ever been. For me, this is not so much a health challenge as it is a general challenge to see if I can decide to do something and stick with it. The people who know me well will tell you that I am notorious for my indecision. I can hardly make up my mind about anything and whenever I think I do, I change it within days (sometimes even minutes or seconds). I made the conscious decision to give up beer a week or two before November started and so far, I've stuck with it. I also decided to give up soda and fast food (I did slip up on that one over the weekend when I ordered fries and a peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chik-fil-a, which, I might add, was absolutely delicious).

This may be a small challenge, yes, but as most people know, sometimes you have to take a big goal and break it into small, little baby steps. If I can decide to give up beer for thirty days and succeed at this, then perhaps next month I can try something bigger (like, yoga every day, perhaps?). And if I can stay firm in this decision and stick with it regardless, then this is a lesson that I can apply to other parts of my life (finish writing a novel comes to mind).