Today in a moment of weakness I bought a pack of smokes. It was a damn stupid thing to do, I know that and knew it at the time, but I did. Just call me stupid.
But in a twisted kind of way I'm glad that I did. After the cashier, an elderly Asian lady, rang up my purchase I picked the pack up off the counter and told her that I really shouldn't be buying them as I was trying to quit. She said to me (in a very thick Asian accent) "No, you do not try. You just quit. No try."
She reminded me of Yoda. "Do or do not. There is no try." I smiled at her, thanked her again, and left.
I thought about what she had said all afternoon and realized that she was dead on. I had been looking at quitting smoking as some long drawn out process. But the word quit implies something sudden. Abrupt. You just...quit. That's the secret. I can't look at it as a process. I just quit. That's it. It's over. Done.
Sure, there is the withdrawal to deal with, but that is something different. That isn't quitting. Quitting is sudden and over with. There is a habit to get over, but that also isn't quitting. It's just something to deal with and move on.
It may seem like a minor thing, a technicality if you will, but it totally changes how I look at quitting smoking. I quit. It's done. That's it. I no longer smoke because I quit. Easy as that.
Maybe that little Asian lady was my angel come to help me out.
Or not. Either way she helped me more than she could ever know.