sick day

It's almost a cliché by now: The internet is where people to go to present the best possible version of themselves. Facebook, Twitter, even blogs like this one, are all representative of this phenomenon. Your life could be falling apart, you could be in the midst of a break-up or just lost your job or be struggling with depression - your photos and tweets and blog posts don't have to reveal anything except how successful you are, how happy you are, how strong you are, and so on.

Cartoonist and author Peter Steiner noted this reality in a New Yorker cartoon as early as 1993, back when the internet looked wildly different than it does today:

So I was sick as a dog (no pun intended) on Saturday. I couldn't keep any food or drink down, and spent most of the day in some sort of feverish daze. Good news, though, I felt good enough to preach the next day and feel much better today.

Through much of Saturday, however, I felt like I should pull myself together enough to write a blog post. Instead, I ended up breaking my Lenten fast a mere four days in.

The disturbing thought that occurred to me later, however, was that my chief motive in wanting to publish a post wasn't to be consistant in my fast. It was so that anybody reading these blog posts wouldn't notice that I skipped a post. If I had been doing some more private fast and needed to skip it because I was sick, I probably would've made my peace with that reality early on in the day.

I'd rather be seen as the guy who is spiritual enough that he'll power through a sick day and be ever-so-committed to following through on his promise to do a post a day for forty days. But if my intention is to be seen a certain way, I might as well quit the fast today. It's worth nothing.

Anyway, I hope that I won't miss any more days, but more than that, I hope my heart will be in the right place for the next month-plus of this. That's the whole point of Lent, anyway.