01 Quitting Smoking

I am a smoker, not a very healthy lifestyle choice, but for the past 5 years or so I have been dosing my lungs with nicotine and tar, recklessly throwing my life away. Of course, concerned non-smoker friends keep on insisting I should stop smoking because it will kill me one day. And all I can say in a scoff and smart-alecky attitude: “Show me someone who didn’t smoke and didn’t die…”

I’m not defending smoking. Do what suits you but be aware of the consequences of it. I just don’t believe in these ultra-health conscious, borderline self-righteous reasons that people have thrown my way. I only smoke in public smoking areas and would never blow in anyone’s way; I’ll never give an under-aged kid a cigarette; I don’t ask anyone for money to buy a pack or a lighter; and I’ll never force you to take up the habit –more than likely I’ll talk to you not to start it. But even though I never pressure anyone, even my closest friends, to start smoking why do you get these people who barely know you forcing you to stop?

I’m defending choice. Let me live or die as the result of my choices. Smoking for me was like a moment to step back and step out of the daily noise and just focus on inhaling, and exhaling smoke that you watch as it floats off in the air detached from everything else going on around you. It’s about the flicker of fire you control at the tips of your fingers. It’s about that moment of peace amidst the chaos. And if smoking was the way for me to get just one moment to myself, let me suffer my own mistakes.

But that was then. I haven’t smoked a single stick for the past month. Not because I want to be healthier. Not because I don’t want to die. Not because of those people who look suspiciously at the smoking area as if it’s doing something offensive. But because it’s a crutch I don’t want to be dependent on it (except probably coffee). Now, I stand awkwardly on corners with my smoker-friends missing the warmth of the smoke but not needing my own. If I can start smoking, I can stop it. I can find peace a different way.

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What if you had the courage to only do the work you love?

How much happier would you be? What separates the people who have the courage and those who don’t? Vulnerability. Accepting that they’re good enough to do the work that gives their life meaning.

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