Woot! Schools over my friends! At least for now. I have a few more things to do but I have to celebrate the end of my last full-time semester as an undergrad. Also, any excuse to post clips from Dazed and Confused, one of my all time favorite movies.
This time last year I was still smoking but desperately wanting to quit. I had grown to hate my habit but I kept making excuses to put off my quit. I was scared because like many of you, I had been smoking for well over a decade and I didn't know what life would feel like without it. The biggest excuse I had was school. I kept thinking, how can I possibly be a student without smoking, everyone smokes as a student. So I kept my bad habit through summer school despite being pretty repulsed by it.
The hardest thing for me was picking a day to quit. I had a window in between summer classes and fall semester but I would be moving across country to go back to the college I wanted my degree from. So there was a lot of stress to manage which didn't seem like great timing either. I went back and forth like this all summer (and probably for years before that) and the fact of the matter is, there is never the perfect time to quit. It doesn't exist. One day I just got so fed up with smoking and the argument I was constantly having with myself that I made that day the day. I ran out of cigs and I never went to the store. I spent an unhappy week in bed with the remote and a lot of bad soap operas and emerged smoke free. I have stayed clean for ten months as of yesterday. It wasn't easy and it still sucks sometimes but man is it worth it.
I have spent a very awesome year being a 34 year old undergrad and managing to stay smoke-free. It wasn't even near as hard as I made myself think it was going to be. So when like three quarters of my three hour long narrative theory class went out for a smoke during break, I stayed behind. It was weird at first but it got easier and easier as the weeks went on. Smoking really isn't that appealing to me anymore but the familiarity of the habit and the reward dynamic in the brain that says, "if you get through this three hour long narrative theory class you can have a smoke"-that was the hardest for me to overcome. The truth is, there are a lot of painfully boring, grating, irritating, and enraging things we have to go through in life. The reward is that they end. You don't need a cig to celebrate that. Besides, a reward really isn't a reward if it contributes to killing you.
As it turns out, I wasn't nearly as anxious for things to end as a non-smoker (an uncessingly happy surprise). Three hours of narrative theory? Bring it. Six hour cross country flight? Without breaking a sweat, my friend. DMV line? Well, no one likes the DMV but it is still easier to brave smoke-free. Way less irritability at an already high level irritation situation.
So kids-whether you have already quit or are in the early stages or just beginning to plan it all out, what excuses do you/did you have that keeps you/kept you smoking? Bring them here and give them some sunlight.
I leave you all with my sentiments about nearing the completion of my long sought after college degree:
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