It used to be a tradition around here for people at major milestones, especially 100 days, to make a sort of ramble� a collection of wonderful, useful knowledge and wisdom learned throughout the quitting process. I have seen many great anniversary rambles here. Some of the absolutely fabulous ones would be Shevie�s �100-day musings of a quasi-coherent brain,� Darkmeyer�s �The Great Blue Yonder� and August�s �What I have learned about quitting� just to name a few. I haven�t seen very many anniversary rambles in a while, but I would like to re-spark that tradition with what I have learned about the difference between this quit and past quits. N2k, you asked for it, and here it is! :p
Knowledge is easy to obtain. The Internet has become a haven for an infinite amount of information� some useful and some not worth the cyber space it takes up. The point is that information is constantly at our fingertips and is very easy to come by. Knowledge about one�s self is much more difficult to realize� not that it�s not as readily available to us; but rather that discovering this knowledge takes courage, self discipline and maturity� tools from within that not everyone utilizes. [color=purple]�Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.�[/color] Lao-Tzu. Quitting smoking is all about self-discovery. You will find things out about yourself that you didn�t think were possible! You have all heard that it takes certain things to quit: commitment, desire and a positive attitude. I would like to list a few that you may or may not have thought of and why I think they are important:
[b]- Unadulterated desire to quit that supercedes your [i]fear of quitting[/i][/b]
Many people here say that you have to want to quit more than you want to smoke, and that�s true, but I think that you also have to want to quit more than you are afraid to. Let�s face it � quitting is scary!!! Fear of quitting and withdrawals keeps many addicts slaves to the cancer sticks. Eleanor Roosevelt said, [color=purple]�You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... you must do the thing you think you cannot do.�[/color] Quitting smoking mea