waundering mind

Updates from March, 2006

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  Brady 8:12 pm on March 13, 2006 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  

  How I quit smoking..

  First off, I believe that you will never quit, unless you truly want to.

  I don’t have some sure fire; quit overnight method for quitting smoking. It may take a year to do. I don’t recommend the use of the nicotine supplements for the simple reason that you are still giving yourself nicotine, which is what you are addicted to and trying to stop using.

  I started smoking on 16th birthday and stopped 11 years, 4 months, and 8 days later. I smoked roughly a pack a day, while sometimes going slightly over that. I can honestly say that I enjoyed smoking for most of the years that I did, and had no real desire to quit. With that in mind, there are things in your life that will change your outlook on things, such as the birth of a child and other such life altering events.

  I smoked my full pack a day until my first daughter was born, which was about 6 or 7 years after I started. I did make a pact with myself that I wouldn’t smoke in the car with her or in the house with her there. So, I stuck to that for a while about a year or so. I think that not smoking in the car, may have been the starting point of it. This got me down to about 15 cigarettes a day.

  As my daughter got a little older, and we moved to an apartment where it was harder to get out and smoke, I simply stopped smoking at home period. I was then only smoking before work, during breaks, and after work before leaving to go home. That put me at about 7 to 8 cigarettes a day.

  Just before our family made a major move overseas, I decided that I was going to quit the day we left. So, just before we went in the airport I smoked my very last cigarette.

  I have found that since then, even from the very beginning, that whenever I wanted a cigarette, I would tell myself that I would smoke one later, to get my mind off of it right then. Of course I would make sure that “later” never came. It has worked well for me so far.

  So the things that I think aided in my “kicking the habit” were these:

  1. Made a conscious acknowledgement that I wanted to quit.

  2. I made it a hassle to smoke, by restricting myself on when and where I could smoke.

  3. Played a small mind game, by telling myself that I would smoke later, knowing later would never come.

  4. A goal to be healthier and richer by not smoking anymore.
  Was it a spectacular way to quit? No, probably not, but it worked for me. I’ve not smoked in almost 6 years this June.

  
   

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  Brady 11:17 am on March 13, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Warning: This may be a unintelligible block of text at the end but I wanted to write some thoughts.

  Howdy folks! Tonight here at work I sit and contemplate the universe and all the people in it. My thoughts seem to keep coming back to the amount of anger there seems to be in the world these days. From the sands of the Middle East to the streets of Disney’s Toontown Online, there seems so much animostity it’s nearly sickening.

  What is the root of all this anger? What is to be gained by such anger? A shorter life span? Is it human nature to be angry all the time? Is this part of our devolution, to help curb our population growth?

  I mean really, take a look around you. People getting all pissed off in a store buying gifts for loved ones. People blowing themselves up for no other reason than to cause as many deaths as possible to mostly innocent women and children. What point is there in that kind of crap? NONE!

  Everyone seems to be pointing fingers to everyone else for the problems in the world. Why won’t people own up to their own problems without expecting people to bail them out. I guess they call this “Entitlement Syndrome”

  I haven’t been the best at containing my anger all of my life, but within these last 6 or so months, while I don’t always succeed, I have really tried to stand beside myself and see where the anger comes from and try to avoid it all at costs. Sometimes, trying to do anything but be angry is a very hard thing to do, but it is for the best in most any situation.

  At work, recently, we had a class on workplace diversity. They asked some very pointed questions to the group, asked us what things shaped our outlook on those around us, trying to make us aware of the “filters” of our emotional and physical influences, that shape our view of others. That night, I said something that I hadn’t ever thought of, or maybe not even felt until that night.  I said something along the lines of, when you have children your outlook on the world changes completely. I feel that most parents treat people around them in such a way, as to help better the world for their children. Be nice here and there, and maybe that niceness will go around the world a few times and come back to your children. I wonder what the world would be if that were the actual way people acted. It saddens me when I think of the things that would be if NO ONE tried to do that. I know that there are at least some feel that way I do, because of the reactions I got to the statement I made in the class.

  I doubt little if any of this made sense. But I will make a vow to myself again tonight, to treat everyone just a little better tommorow, and redoubling my determination in loving my wife and children.

  Just my take on the world for today, as I can barely watch the news anymore because of all the anger shown there.