[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by freidatheant
on July 27, 2008, 11:25 am, in reply to "Peer Pressure and Defeat?"
I wonder if there is a missing element in the lead up to her decision to quit smoking? Some information that shows how she was persuaded, against her will, that now she must decide to quit, something that she has come to resent.
Your very thorough description of her current mindset shows her quite ambivalent and resentful that she must now commit to terminate something that has so much meaning for her, both in the past and for the future.
I know that there are times when I commit to stop smoking for a while, and I am successful because it is my very own idea. I pressure myself into a smoking fast, not as a results of someone else's pressure, but as a consequence of my desire not to smoke for a while. I fell good about while I do it, but then I feel good about when I return to smoking later on.
Nevertheless, I recognize all the elements that your friend has felt; I've felt those things, too. But my own internal navigation system has been fine tuned for my own particular lifestyle, and it knows when and where to hold the line, or make a change. That way, my changes in life habits are pretty much going to result in changes that are working for me, not against my basic instincts.
Thanks so much for sharing this in a most engaging way.
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