Well in life there are lots of times to take certain things up, and times to give things up.  For Lent people who choose to do so usually give something personally significant up; for example, I gave up sweetened things.  You guys, let me make it clear just how significant it is to me that I drink two glasses of root beer and eat four Snickers every morning.  

It's very important to take things up too!  I took up learning how to play the banjo last year.  I also took up eating healthier and working out more.  These "take-ups" and "give-ups" are the corpus of a person's process of character development.  We ought to take up behaviors and beliefs that contribute to the fulfillment of our duty and happiness, and give up behaviors and beliefs that do the opposite.

And what else is there to being a good person than that?  We all come across moments where we think we've gone astray and need to improve.  And I think the only ingredient to a happy life is that resolve to set out and improve--by taking up the right beliefs, and giving up the wrong ones; by doing the right thing, and not doing the wrong thing.  Some people call that "being born again."  I think that's about right.

Evangelicals, Alcoholics Anonymous members, and C.S. Lewis, don't confuse my position with Pelagianism.  Jeez.