Let’s see if by saying it out loud and committing myself in writing I can get used to not smoking. At the moment, it’s been a month and a half since I’ve lit a cigarette after having done so for almost, if not almost, fifty years. If I have undertaken this crusade, it has not been out of conviction, or even out of fear that one of the seven plagues of Egypt will be taken away from me (let’s say lung disease), but to set a challenge that depends on myself.
One fine day I told my wise and dedicated GP that I wanted to try and here I go. Let no one criticize my primary care, because my kind doctor would have no obligation to follow up and, nevertheless, she calls me on the phone to verify that I keep my word. I tell him that I don’t smoke, but also that I still haven’t gotten over the urge, it occurs to me as in almost everything that I like but it doesn’t suit me.
My rational self admits that some of my behavior is deplorable, whether it’s smoking, buying clothes that hang in the closet with tags attached, or, even worse, chomping down on a whole bar of chocolate Milka with hazelnuts. But my emotional self justifies all my excesses, including cheating on my solitaire, so I need witnesses to avoid falling, at least in public, into temptation.
That is why we need to explain our weaknesses to the people who love us so that, once exposed, we have, what a remedy, the bull shame of not returning on the same path that, like in tango, takes us “downhill in the roll” . If you have sworn to a friend that you will never see that faker again in your life who, for a change, has taken your hair again, try to keep your word and if you don’t, let it be for a justified reason.
Lesson: Stopping smoking, eating, shopping or paying attention to older men who are still attractive is not an easy task, it requires a lot of willpower and a lot of perseverance because in reality, almost everything we like is a sin or gain weight
