GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us! We kindly ask that politics be left out.
You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS Library at dKosopedia for a great list of stop-smoking links. Check it out! Want to make sure you never miss us? Follow (♥) the GUS tag to keep GUS in your Stream. It's just that easy!
A message to ALL quitters. You don't have to avoid GUS if you have a failed quit. We won't give you a bad time and we consider the failed quits as "practice" for the real quit.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
Everyone experiences the passage of time a little differently, and each of us experience it in different ways at different points in our lives. Some of us are prone to dwell in the past, some live in the moment, and some are fixated (or perhaps dreading) the future. Most of us, though, spend a little time grappling with each of these feelings in turn, sometimes situationally, sometimes reactively, and sometimes out of the blue, for no particular reason we can put our finger on.
Humans are funny that way.
When we're kids, time drags: time-outs are endless, the hands on classroom clocks don't seem to move, and Summer lasts foreeeeeeeeever. Our little sponge-like brains are busy absorbing all kinds of information, making assumptions, drawing conclusions. Our basic personalities are already formed, but this is where the "nurture" part of the whole "nature vs. nurture" question comes into play. For better or worse, this is when we start to form our own self-image, and buy into---or reject---the narrative others may be writing for us (or that we write for ourselves). We learn our first life lessons, some of them harsher than others. And slowly, inexorably, the older we get, the harder it is to believe---as we once did---that anything is possible.
As young adults, we often live almost wholly in the moment, experiencing life as a series of "NOW!" decisions and reactions. It plays to our impulsive, eager-to-experience-life side; more than that, it's fun. We're not mired in indecision, we don't dwell on the likely long-term consequences of our actions, and we don't always recognize how the experiences of our past might be shaping our responses and choices. Unfortunately, for many of us, this is also when we get locked into destructive relationship patterns and addictive behaviors, ones that may persist long after we're old enough to know better.
“The past is never where you think you left it.”
― Katherine Anne Porter
The soul-searching and candid self-observation that goes into changing a long-term, ingrained behavior can be tough for a lot of us, because it requires taking a look at past experiences and life choices that might not have been good ones. It also forces us to recognize that we may be hanging onto those unhelpful thoughts, negative assumptions, and destructive behaviors even now. It's hard to face up to that, and harder still to recognize and accept that no matter
WHAT we did in the past, that we are not forever bound to---or limited by---those choices.
Many of us look back on our pasts with a sense of finality, or even futility, believing that the things we did, and the choices we made somehow doom our efforts going forward. We look at all of those questionable decisions and past failures and assume they are somehow etched in stone, forever shaping our present AND our future. We forget that the feeling of defeat, that virtual "KICK ME" sign we put on our own back, is not a permanent state, but rather a part of the growth process, a way to work out what doesn't work for us. It's only permanent when we stop trying.
And you don't want to do that, do you? Nahh. I didn't think so.
Who's your little buddy?
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p.s. Happy Great American Smokeout, Y'alls! Anyone have this as a quit date?