Last Wish #03 … Stop smoking; start Living (03/16/14)

The main reason I want you to stop smoking is because I LOVE YOU and don’t like seeing you commit a willful, slow suicide. Your brilliant and Beauty-filled life is already so short & so priceless, and it is a shame to see you wasting so much of it by inhaling death every day.

That having been said, I do recognize that every one of us has the right to kill ourselves however and whenever we wish.

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Of course, the other main reason I want you to stop smoking is because — while you DO have the right to harm or even end your own life by succumbing to your addictions — you do NOT have the right to harm or end others’ lives while doing so. Every cigarette you smoke increases the chances of all those around you becoming very, very sick. Even worse, every cigarette you smoke damages the health & well-being of those same individuals INTIMATELY & IMMEDIATELY. Every co-worker, every classmate, every family member, every friend & every stranger — we are ALL harmed by your choices to sacrifice your own health for a few moments of pleasure.

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Yes, nicotine is one of the most difficult addictions to escape, AND it is possible to do so — thousands of new ex-smokers are proving so every day. And as such, if you are a smoker, it is my third “Last Wish” that you do so as well … that you stop smoking, and that you please do so TODAY.

And if you happen to be a non-smoker, it is my third “Last Wish” that you refuse to enable others’ smoking any longer; that you no longer say that it’s OK for them to smoke in your presence; simply because you Love them .. and therefore you know that it is not.

“Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky folks will say, ‘Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.’ And yet nobody feels like that in a cancer ward … Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness right out of you. And for what? Another cigarette?” ~ Tony Parsons

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