I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that I have never made a decision to start smoking. Think about it - have you?
Nobody wakes up one day and says to themselves “Today, I will start smoking! At first it might make me sick but I am not a quitter! I will stick with it. I will make it a part of my daily routine.”
In movies cool characters smoke and a cigarette in woman’s hand right away tells you that she is sexy, strong and independent. Even if we discount influence of culture you still couldn’t escape the fact that it was the cool kids who were smoking.
You might have been saying to yourself that you are a strong person but in reality we try to follow people we find appealing. This is why celebrity gossip magazines are always the ones with the best sales stats. This is why smoking is now decreasing in popularity.
Cigarette advertisements were banned in most of the world and we just don’t see badasses and sexy women with cigarettes in their teeth as often as we used too.
Now e-cigarette ads are being restricted as well. These are same habit forming potentially harmful nicotine delivery system so they need to be controlled same way regular cigarettes are.
You can put blame on you starting smoking at least partly on TV and others. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it doesn’t really make any difference now. You might have not made a decision to start smoking but the decision to stop is all you and only you.
You see anti-smoking ads, people around you say how bad it is, encourage you to quit but that is only noise until you make a decision.
I used to constantly hear that I should think about my health, that I should think about how much I could save. I have never really paid any attention. The decision to quit was only slightly influenced by these outside factors. You need to make this decision for yourself.
I found that the most important thing is not the method but the reason. Now let’s work on that motivation and figure out reasons that will help you stay the course.
By the way, currently let’s say you are in a preparation stage so smoke along.
I will tell you when and how to quit but for now puff away.