By Timothy Hammond
For many years I have felt in bondage to a bad habit. I have had this habit since I was eleven years old and at forty-eight years old, I am earnestly trying to stop particpating in it. I know that it has gotten me anywhere in my life thus far and yet I still give into it. I ponder the question why do humans tend to give into things that make us unhappy and when we know they make us unhappy? Furthermore, why are we blinded by things such as smoking, thinking thast we are happy when we really are not happy?
I started smoking when I was eighteen years old and quit when I was thirty-nine years old. It took me three years to quit smoking from the time I started trying to quit smoking in earnest until the day I had my last cigarette. Currently, it has been ten years since I had a cigarette. I feel so much happier now not smoking than I ever did when I was smoking. I realize now that I was so blinded by the euphoria I got from smoking as well as the false beliefs that smoking makes me less stressed. Recently, I was at a convenience store and overheard a cashier tell another cashier that she stopped smoking while she was pregnant with her child but she took it up again after she had her child because she was so stressed out. I asked myself the question: what is the difference between her and me? Why did she take up smoking again while I did not and will not ever smoke again? Perhaps it is my belief system that changed while her belief system did not change.