The Eastern Edge

...there's probably a blog entry about it somewhere.

While preparing some new tweaks and updates for the Japanese blog and column pages, I went rummaging through old blog posts and realized that 3 years ago this week I began my mission to quit smoking.
My blog isn't exactly my personal Secret Diary of Adrain Mole or anythying, but I do write about the mundane concerns of everyday life once in a while.

I wrote quite a bit about quitting in the first few days, but my mission was over fairly quickly and turned out to be about as difficult to handle as constipation. Sure it makes you uncomfortable for a while, but it'll generally work itself out with a little time, lots of ruffage, and a big push near the end.

Only few grueling days after the first post about cutting down with the intention of quitting, I had made up my mind and was well into cold turkey, but it got easier quickly after that and I never relapsed or took so much as a drag since. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and I was considered a heavy smoker at just under a pack a day (meaning a 20pack, not the Canadian large-size 25 packs).

I've heard so many people talk about how hard it is to quit smoking, and I know a few people who have been saying they want to for years with no success. Looking back now it wasn't really hard except for the first few weeks.
Sure it's different for everyone, but I believe now that if someone says they want to quit but can't, they probably don't really want to. They may think they should, but I doubt they want to.

I'm glad I quit and I wouldn't start again, but I am also far from being a militant born-again ex-smoker preaching that tobacco is an agent of the devil and will kill you. I've said this before, but I think there are other "acceptable" lifestyle choices that will kill you faster. If people want to smoke, then let them smoke. A lot of the anti-smoking people, especially the ex-smokers, really need to stop trying to save the world with their crusades. No one smokes because they think it's good for them and no one will quit because an ex-smoker told them to.

As far as smoking goes, it's just another dumb thing that people do. We all have dumb habits and that's just one of them.
I agree that non-smokers shouldn't be subjected to it in the work place, on public transportation or other public facilities. etc., but other than that just let people smoke. It's their life, their choice. Personally, I liked smoking. But I didn't like what I started to feel it doing to by body, and I didn't think it was right to subject my wife or the kids I wanted to have (which I now do have) to it, so I quit. My life, my choice - end of story.

The only thing that pisses me off, and did even when I was a smoker, is smoking on crowded streets. In Japan, especially Tokyo, you still get assholes who don't give a shit and flick their ashes with no concern for whose face they fly into, and oblivious to the fact that smoke from every puff they take goes into someone's face. But that's not a smoking problem per se, that has to do with manners. Even if those people quit, I’m sure they'll find other ways to make life miserable for the people around them.

Speaking of blowing smoke, most of the "I'm trying to quit" or "I'm cutting down" people are doing nothing but.

If I could collect the price of one Canadian cigarette for every time I ever heard a smoker say "I'm cutting down", I'd make Warren Buffett look like the little match girl!

If you want to quit, just quit.

Anyway, just something that came to mind while looking through old posts.
Back to work...