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Thoughtful Thursdays are Here. What Do You Think About This? Comment and Follow Me

1.  I would like to demystify a certain urban myth  that it is hard to quit smoking created by "they" or
  " society". First let's demystify "They". Who are "They"? Do "They" have any real power, or just some imaginary power? Who assigned "They" that power? Look closely and you will see that "They" is nobody's name. At the end of the day, each society is made up of individuals, and a society is only as healthy as its individuals are. Simply put, you and I and each person we know and are surrounded by make up this society and smaller societies.

2. It is like assembling every single food item sold in all the stores and mixing it up to create some gigantic soup pot. Pretty hard to get any grasp on what it would taste like. It certainly wouldn't be vegetarian, and I think I'd be hard pressed to find anyone to sample. It sounds pretty disgusting, nightmarish. but yet people pile on and add every single person of a society into this equation called society and then they utilize this word society as if it is some giant collective authority, some impersonal entity.

3. When I am calling for a tobacco free world I am not trying to offer an opinion. That would be like saying I am offering an opinion if I want to help put out forest fires or save a drowning person. I am trying to create a tobacco free world, I need to create a tobacco free world, and I am all too well aware of some lingering false notions perpetuated by societal attitudes. I could liken these societal attitudes to a thermometer result. It is just an indicator. The societal attitudes fluctuate. The societal factors don't need to keep influencing anything. 

4. Now I know that the people who cling for dear life to smoking tobacco will squeal their rights are being trampled. I'm not talking about does society as a whole have influence in helping people quit? I am trying to deconstruct notions perpetuated by society that are unhelpful. As much as tobacco smokers may fight to keep smoking anywhere, it is proven beyond a doubt that tobacco is lethal. Such die-hard smokers should be redirected to counselling to overcome such irrational thinking. Hmmm. They could also try out gas sniffing and glue sniffing, and insist they have a right to practice such a poisonous drug addiction. That's about how useful and safe both tobacco and inhalant drug use are in the eyes of most people, including tobacco smokers themselves. I had a burning desire to study sociology all my life. But I think I would have spent most of my studies trying to unravel this unseen glob called society. Now I understand full well societal pressure, societal norms.

5. I really think that the key to ending this addiction and many others is to begin to look under the bed at all our so-called monsters and slay them one by one. Why let anyone or anything make it harder for you to make a necessary, healthier, life-saving, money-saving choice as quitting smoking? Because you can make quitting much, much easier. First, it'll take some re-education and re-thinking. Please start discussing this new concept with everyone you know around you and please refer them to my blog. Please comment  for additional tips and prayer requests. I'd be more than glad to help. I'd be ecstatic to help in bringing about a tobacco free world.

6. Now please be patient as I make my case. I know very well the power of the bogeyman, and the power of the monster under the bed. These are very real and terrifying to young children. What monsters really serve is the child's way of externalizing his or her's fears. The child is too young to be conscious of fear as an abstract. The child is unaware that fear rises up within the child. What might the child really be afraid of? The unknown dark recesses of the bedroom closet, or fear of the unknown after we fall asleep or fear of what transpired during the day or even a future real fear facing them at school or in the family.

7. But because the child is afraid of fear itself, the fear becomes associated with an immediate, pressing concern. Even though it is irrational it seems very vivid to the child. Friends, you are unknowingly making a bogeyman out of tobacco. You are repeating a negative, unproductive mantra, "It is hard to quit smoking." And you are believing it, hook, line and sinker. Why are you doing this?

8. Remember the childhood game Telephone? Where we would stand in a circle and each person would whisper a secret word or two into the person's ear. By the time the phrase had gone round the whole circle of twenty or thirty kids, the end product was a garbled incoherent message or at the very least some words were altered. This is the garbled message, the junky error message you are hearing about tobacco. You are amazed that one guy you know from work quit tobacco cold turkey overnight it seems, with no effort, no complaining. You are amazed and say, bemoaning your circumstance, "Why is it so hard for me?" That is you self-talking yourself into staying a smoker. No need for this.

9. I am just going to introduce this concept. That you are fooling yourself with this erroneous message. Because this self-dishonesty is practiced on such a wide scale it is almost impossible for us to be immune from it. But we can start now, by equipping ourselves with critical thinking skills.

10. I bet you think Philosophy in very loose terms has got to be the weirdest tobacco cessation method you ever heard of. Please stay tuned. For as much as you want to quit, and for as much as you grapple with every nicotine replacement device, if your underlying thoughts are full of cognitive distortions and urban myths, you will have a harder time, trust me. Let's untwist your thinking, shall we? Have a great day. Tell me how this has helped you in the comments section below.