the guidelines I follow...
-if I sin, I must force myself to be aware of my sin, even in the act of sinning - which makes me sad
-never fail to take Holy Communion - so if you sinned, go to confession, and take Holy Communion... take It every week and you will not despair of your fallen nature.
-the above assumes that every week you go to church... never fail to go to church - even if you\'re tired, sick, cranky, don\'t want to, whatever - set your alarms (yes, more than one) get up early, get to the service early - and do your best to sing along... even if you fall asleep in the sermon, don\'t worry... just keep going.
following this routine, I have found the things I needed to divorce myself from, because they caused me to sin, or I came to realize that they were sins themselves.
I also found it helpful to get a fruitful hobby... It\'s not easy to pray constantly - I\'m not a saint, afterall... so I took up learning a musical instrument.... the committment to learning music is similar to the faith... you just have to keep at it - even if you\'re terrible at it - the longer you do it, the better you\'ll get at it. In addition this limits your \\"idle time\\" - I found that idle time was when I was most likely to sin - sitting at the computer or TV can be quite dangerous and life draining... learning something old fashioned builds character. (why do you think kids who do nothing but play computer games are so boring?)
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