Absence makes the head grow wiser

“What the recession is making us do is abandon our slavish devotion to habits that affluent Irish society had taught us to feed”

Speaker's Corner

With Lent around the corner, many of us are now preparing for absences. The absence of caffeine or nicotine, separation from chocolate or cakes, perhaps even withdrawal from impulsive purchasing. The build-up is the hardest part; the knowing that from this week we will no longer be able to indulge in a habit that for the rest of the year we believe it impossible to live without.

But, bizarrely, once it comes most of us manage to fulfill our commitment to whatever form of deprivation we have chosen to inflict on ourselves. More bizarrely still, we actually begin to enjoy it. The feelgood factor of self-discipline quickly outweighs the aching longing for what was comfortingly familiar.

Most Lenten seasons I choose to forego ‘sweet stuff’, as I euphemistically like to call the cakes, biscuits, chocolate and pick ‘n’ mix sweets in which I over-indulge for the other 325 days of the year. Each year I dread Lent’s arrival, only to have forgotten within a week that I’m abstaining at all. Sometimes there are occasional lapses, or special dispensations of which God approves (I tell myself), like if I’m away somewhere and discover fabulous cakes that I might never again get the chance to taste.

For the rest of the time though, coping with the absence of foodstuffs that normally form an integral part of my diet is relatively easy. Because really my obsession with certain foods is all about habit rather than longing or need. And habits can easily be broken when health or economic necessity demands. And the economy is being very demanding of us all at the moment, forcing wholesale changes to habits without so much as widespread realisation, never mind fuss.

I haven’t quite abandoned my ‘sweet stuff’, but I’ve changed in other ways without even trying. Indeed without even thinking. I’ve stopped eating out so much. I go clothes shopping far less frequently and, more significantly, I have a far less frequent urge to go clothes shopping. I don’t buy as many new-to-the-market-and-promising-the-earth beauty products as I used to, knowing that in all likelihood I’ll never actually use them. I’m turning into my mother in terms of being tuned in to bargain buys and savings in supermarkets (though I haven’t yet gone as far as having seven bottles of Lenor, six bottles of shower gel and four tubs of butter on standby at any one time, but I’m not ruling it out).

What the recession is making us do (perhaps unconsciously) is abandon our slavish devotion to habits that affluent Irish society had taught us to feed. And it’s empowering. Now, we have the right to say ‘no’ again without feeling like a pauper or a cheapskate. We have the authority to invoke our willpower instead of always giving in to our habitual cravings.

And embracing ‘absence’ can stray into the realm of romance too. Unromantic though it may sound, not all relationships are strengthened by absence. Some are ended by it – and blessedly so for all concerned. Attraction to the drama of tempestuous relationships was another destructive habit that the Celtic Tiger spawned. Many well-heeled young (in particular, though not exclusively) men and women who wanted for little in material terms got their kicks from toxic alliances that should never have lasted beyond a first date, but instead developed into long-term partnerships or marriages that were always destined to end in tears. Absence can allow for a re-ordering of priorities and an assessment of what happiness really is.

Lent has much to recommend it, and this year most of us are already well-practised in the skills required to make it a success. Even if we don’t use it as it should be used in a religious sense – to deprive ourselves of something which we instead give (or whose value we give) to the poor, as a kind of penance and also a form of thanksgiving – we might use it as an opportunity to replenish our sense of self and restore balance to our lives.