simplerich

Mary Poppins said when they were cleaning the kids’ room, “Once begun is half done!” That’s true of more than just cleaning rooms.

I quit smoking for five years. Got some personal catastrophe that was pretty life changing and thought to myself, “You know what? A cigarette won’t change a thing but I want one right now and I’ve been quit so long I’ll smoke a pack just to get through this without driving into a bridge abutment.” So, I bought a pack… Nine months later I was still looking for the perfect time to quit smoking. I’d wait until this pack was over… then I’d wait until inventory was over, but then oh wait… not this weekend, gotta busy one. I’ll just… finally I bought some patches and lozenges and armored up… I wore the patch for a couple of days and used the lozenges for a couple of days (not at same time as the patch.) And then I quit. No nicotine substitutes, not cigarettes, no patches, no lozenges. It wasn’t exactly cold turkey but it wasn’t the way those nico-replacements say to do it either. The thing that was important was to quit waiting for the right time and just quit already.

A couple of days ago it was 95 degrees. I was going for a walk. I’d been working my way up to running again but haven’t yet. You know… needed the perfect time to start. So, here I am on the nature trail, walking in jeans and a t-shirt and it’s 95 and humid as hell and I realize… I feel pretty good. I feel like a quick jog. So, I ran some intervals. I haven’t run since July of last year, not really. So intervals seemed like a good start. The part where I was in jeans drew some looks but hey… why not? If I had a lion chasing me I’d run in jeans and not stop to change into running shorts. Today I ran again… twice. Once in the morning on purpose and once in the evening by accident. I don’t have my stamina yet, but I can feel it. I’m better than I was the first time I started running. I didn’t need to way for the perfect time to start. I started while wearing jeans and it was 95 degrees.

My point is what are you waiting on? What are you waiting for the right time to do? I wasted a lot of time waiting for the right time to do both of those things when I could really have just done them and gotten it over with. Talking to my room mate’s mom today at dinner and she said something similar, “I like to go for a walk, but that first five minutes is the hardest. Once I get started I’m good. But it’s the getting started that’s tough.” She’s right.

I’m glad I’m not smoking again (this quit was easier than my first quit because I knew the craves would go away… when I was craving one I knew it wouldn’t last forever and it would get better. The first time I quit smoking I assumed it would always suck. It doesn’t.). I’m also glad to be running again. I can’t wait to get my legs back. I was pleasantly surprised to have not lost my wind.

Today while I was hiking I was listening to Mur Lafferty‘s Podcast “I Should Be Writing” today and she talked about how odd it is to hear adults say, “I want to bake a cake” (or whatever) but they don’t actually bake the cake. Why not? They’re adults. If they want to do something there’s nobody telling them they can’t. It’s not like they’re 6 and want to bake a cake and need help or permission. I’m an adult. I didn’t have to wait for permission to run or quit smoking. When I would say, “I want to quit smoking” but then didn’t actually go about QUITTING I was saying, “I want to say I want to quit… if I actually wanted to quit I’d work on quitting and not on talking about it.” I’d say, “I want to run” but I wouldn’t run. So what I meant was, “I want to say I want to run.” If I’d wanted to run… I’d have run. I wanted to watch Survivor and I watched that. I wanted to eat and I ate. I wanted coffee in the morning and I got that… those things I really want… I do. So next time you hear someone say, “I want to…” Push them. Find out why they’re not doing it right now? What’s stopping them? Do they really want to? Or do they just want to appear to want to? If they want to why not do it right now? Once begun is, after all, half done!

Mary Poppins wouldn’t lie to us. “Once begun IS half done.” So, get busy getting started and once you’re off your butt and doing that thing you’ve been putting off you’ll be half done! There’s probably nobody stopping you but you!

The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins (1)

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

4 years ago today I quit smoking. That’s over 29,000 cigarettes I have not smoked, saving around $6k and gaining about 15lbs. (12 of which I’ve lost in the past 2 months)

If I had known when I lit my first cigarette how hard it would be for me to quit 8 years later I hope I wouldn’t have lit it. The first cigarette was easy to not smoke. Heck. The first pack wasn’t easy to smoke. I only smoked if I had been drinking. After enough of those it became easier to smoke even when I hadn’t had a drink.

I quit several times using the patch and I have to tell you… that was my favorite way to quit but not the most effective way. As I said… I quit several times that way. The patches dose of nicotine gave me almost hallucinatory quality dreams. I don’t take hallucinogens so I’m only guessing but the dreams that were a side effect of the patch were interesting and fun. Surprisingly if I could go back to smoking I wouldn’t, but if I could go back to a patch that would give me the dreams I would in a minute. Sadly, I’m so unused to nicotine at this point that I am sure I would feel nicotine poisoned and sick with even the lowest dosage. So, I don’t use the patch and I don’t smoke… and haven’t for four years today.

I see kids start smoking today and know that nothing anybody says could have talked me out of smoking and I know that nothing I will say will stop them from smoking, but I say it anyway. I won’t buy their smokes and I don’t let them smoke in my car (I’m 40, when I say kids smoking that age goes way higher than it did when I was a kid of 20 so don’t think I’m talking about 10 year olds!).

It’s been a strange four years. I moved from Des Moines, IA to Memphis, TN and then from there to Ft. Dodge, IA. I got a promotion, then a demotion, and changed office locations 4 times. My Dad had brain surgery to remove a tumor, and the company I worked for changed ownership 4 times. In all that time and with all that stress I didn’t smoke.

So, if  you’re out there now thinking about quitting smoking. Do it. Don’t wait for things to get better or for their to be less stress. Life’s not like that. Just quit now. This might not be the quit that sticks, but it certainly won’t be if you don’t try it. It’s OK to quit more than once as long as you keep quitting. There will come a point when you’re tired of it and when the switch inside your head is thrown and at that point you’ll be quit and later you’ll be able to sit and have a morning cup of coffee without reaching for the pack. You’ll hear the crinkle of cellophane without thinking it’s a new pack. You’ll be able to get in your car and start it without cracking the window to let the smoke out. You CAN quit, all you have to do is start quitting.

(1) Billy Collins’ poem, “The Best Cigarette.” Read the rest of his poem here or you can listen to it here.