No Smoking

Well, it's day six of my new life as a non-smoker.
I didn't plan ahead, I didn't come up with an exit strategy, and I didn't even mentally prepare myself. It was a spontaneous decision, brought on by a minor miscommunication between myself and the lovely Mrs. High Cell. One fateful afternoon last week, we both assumed the other was going to buy cigarettes on the way home. By the time we realized that neither of us did, I didn't feel like leaving the house. "Maybe we should just quit?", she says. "Well, maybe we just should.", was my response.
Essentially, my innate laziness was the catalyst that I used as a reason to quit smoking.

Don't get me wrong, the necessity of quitting has been on my radar since... well, since I started. But over the past few years when I've considered the possibility of quitting, I've always felt like I needed to have a plan.
"I need to cut down first."
"I need to really be ready, or it's not going to work."
"I need to find a good replacement for it."
"I need to build up the courage."

I was always making excuses. I was always grasping at reasons not to quit yet. Reaching for a way to postpone the actual 'quitting', when in reality, none of these things would have made this process any easier for me. It's not easy, no matter what you do. If anything, I think it would be even more difficult for me if I had gone through with one of those plans and built it up into more of an event than it needed to be. I think planning ahead too much would have introduced an extra sense of pressure, as well as a certain dramatic flair that would have made it acceptable to fail. 
So although I've been having difficulty with it, I'm glad that I just dove in head-first on a whim rather than making a spectacle of the process to "start" quitting.

There are no less than 599 chemical additives in your common cigarette (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes), and I can't help but feel that those are some creepy sonsabitches and they're trying to control my thoughts. Generally speaking, I'm a stubborn fella, I've always had issues with authority, and I HATE feeling like I'm being manipulated. This process is bringing all of these feelings together for a perfect storm of self loathing. There's that little second voice in my head, the "devil on one shoulder" if you will, that is such a little asshole. I'm picturing this voice coming from a tiny little me, only dressed up in cheesy plaid pants with slicked-back hair and a toothpick in his mouth.. A sleazy little salesman with nothing productive (or honest) to say. This demonic and douche-ridden little fella is providing a running pessimistic commentary for me throughout this journey, saying things like "Well, I made it six days so now I know that I can quit... later...". "Do I really want to quit anyway?" "I've been doing great, I deserve at least one cigarette as a reward". "Nobody just quits cold turkey, I can have one here and there to make it easier.."
My own brain is trying to manipulate me, and I don't like it. That's where the stubbornness is an assett, because I refuse to let that evil little bastard make me do something I don't want to do. And my problem with authority is also coming in handy, because I'm considering today how ridiculous it is that a little stick that I light on fire has some kind of control over me. In short, I'd like to look cigarettes right in their skeevy eyes and say "I'm a grown-ass man, you're not the boss of me!"

I refuse to be one of those folks who engages in that long and drawn-out back and forth struggle. I think sometimes people are kind of inclined to allow themselves to fail, in the hopes that they can rebound from the adversity before validating their destiny like some hapless underdog in an 80's John Hughes movie. But not me. I don't want a long chess match. I just want to deliver a swift Krav Maga kick right to the metaphorical ballbag of this unfortunate habit and push it down a flight of stairs, before tying it to the tracks of the train that is carrying me to a happier and healthier chapter of my life.


         

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