A post I just did on Quitnet.com (quitting my cigarettes 10 yrs ago)

Hi folks;

 

I was thinking about you a couple of days ago, and felt compelled to write in, to share some (humble) advice, for those clutching at straws and desperate threads – just as I did when I started on this path to quit many moons ago. First my stats:

1.      Quit 3141 days.

2.      $25,520.62 saved

3.      20 months of life saved

 

I’m coming up on my 10 yr anniversary this October – I can’t believe it’s been that long. I’m not sure what I’m more happier with: The money, it ain’t chump change? The fact that I no longer am an outcast? The fact that I can jog without heaving my lungs out? The fact that I don’t feel like SH*T everyday? Maybe it’s all those things, and maybe it’s the fact that when I pick up my 3 year old boy, Zak, and swing him in my arms – I know that I’m not cheating him of our life.

 

You’re not going to quit because, someone tells you to, you’re not going to quit because you read something, you’ll quit because at some point in time, after all the failures, time and time again, you’ll wake up one day – and just as plain as day, quit. You’ll quit because you decide one day that you have a fraction more of strength you didn’t have the day before, and that’ll push the pack back into the recess. You’ll quit because, even though you did quit many times before, you’ll win a small victory this time, and your will power will use another small victory to build a little momentum. You’ll tread carefully, you’ll slowly put the little victories together. No need to make loud statements, just be humble, and remember the bigger picture. Bit by bit, little by little.

 

I’ll leave you with two of my favorite quotes; the first is from a story I heard. Long ago, in a Muslim land, a restless King asked scholars to give him something that would bring hope through the ups and downs in his life. They gave him a ring, and on it inscribed “This Too Shall Pass”. The second, was in 2007, as I travelled in Kabul and other cities in war torn Afghanistan, I learned of a Dari proverb, “Drop by drop it makes a river.”

 

Salam, Cheers, Shalom;

_naeem