Saturday, May 07, 2005

Out of all the non-smoking aids I collected prior to quitting, the one I still reach for, now and then, is a little book of "meditations" called Out of the Ashes.

I like to open it at random, and then read and think about whatever passage I've found.

I just did that, opened it at random and landed on this:
Cravings ...

Part of being an adult means accepting life's limitations, and developing realistic goals and expectations.

If I buy a lottery ticket expecting to win, the chances are very high I'm going to be disappointed. And to repeatedly buy tickets with that expectation is to live in misery. On the other hand, if I buy the ticket knowing the odds are a zillion to one against me, I can treat the bet as a game and not be disappointed.

If I expect stopping smoking to be effortless, I will be disappointed when it isn't. If I look at stopping smoking realistically, and know there are going to be ups and downs, I will handle the downs much better, and be happier.


I'm well beyond the point where I feel intense physical cravings -- those went away very quickly, and were mostly gone after the first three days of the quit -- but I still feel urges to smoke, now and then. So it does help to keep in mind that this is not effortless, even after five months. If I expected it to be effortless, I would be disappointed, as the authors say. And not only disappointed, but frustrated. And frustration is a huge smoking trigger for me! So it's better all around to expect difficulties, to make room in how I think about this for difficulties.

This reminds me of a line that comes up sometimes in political discussions -- the perfect is the enemy of the good. It's good not to be smoking. My life is better in a lot of ways. But if I demanded perfection -- if I expected never to miss the cigarettes -- I could become so frustrated and unhappy with the quit that the quit itself might be jeopardized.

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