SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 4: Struggle

"Struggle: A forceful effort to get free of restraint."



First day after the decision. I woke up looked at the packet, for a moment held it, then realized that I don't smoke. Waking up in the morning and not lighting the cigarette was very strange. So I decided to use the flexibility I had factored. "I will for some days smoke only one cigarette in a day" I told myself. This decision helped me not light the cigarette then. The two options I gave myself were, light it now and don't smoke all day or delay it for later. I chose the second. Since I am the first one to wake up in the house, I was not subjected to the torture of watching Piyush and Ajay smoke.



Fortunately my boss was not in office that day. That meant one less temptation. I kept the packet I was carrying in my drawer and got to work. At 11 a colleague called me for tea. I went out for tea with him, did not light the cigarette. At least five people asked me why I was not smoking. "sala koi accha kaam karna bhi chahe to ye jamana nahi karne deta with all their questions." I told them that I am trying to cut down on smoking, since I had been smoking a lot lately. One irritant was not satisfied with this answer. "Why? Kisne bola?" he asked. "accha kaam karne ke liye bhi reason chahiye hota hai kya?" I answered.



After lunch, which supposedly is the most tempting part of the day for a smoker, I decided not to accompany my regular gang down and I directly headed back to my desk. I realized one good thing about smoking, if you delay the urge for couple of minutes, it doesn't kick in for few hours. I was planning to use this to my advantage. :)



I kept on delaying the urge and did manage to delay it till dinner. After dinner, I desperately needed a cigarette. I decided to compensate that urge by having some tea. What I did not factor was the fact that Piyush will also have tea with me and he will light his cigarette then. So as promised to myself in the morning, I did light and smoke one and only cigarette of the day.



Then I made another promise to myself. To put a deadline to this one cigarette a day arrangement. The deadline I decided was one week.