The Nicotine Trap

I’m addicted to smoking.  

I started several years ago (about a pack a day) and haven’t been able to quit.  Like a true addict, I am planning on quitting in the near future- just not right now. 

Since starting this blog, I’ve been examining more closely the connection between cigarettes and my personal happiness- looking at my tobacco use through an emotional lens, if you will.  The results were illuminating.

When someone smokes a cigarette for the first time, they get an instant tingly jolt that makes them feel better than they did a few minutes before.  Nicotine, a substance previously unknown to the body, hits the bloodstream like a hand grenade filled with joy, sending shards of happiness to the brain.  Like all drug-related highs, it quickly wears off.  Here’s a chart I made.

The happiness level before the first cigarette is referenced by the letter “A.”  The high from smoking is “B,” which is fairly high relative to the initial “A.”  The level a few minutes after smoking is “C.”

Not All Roses

As I was looking over the blog, I realized that I’m giving off the impression that I’m always overjoyed and thrilled to encounter the world. 

This, sadly, is simply not true.  While I’m generally an upbeat person, I have my moments like everyone else.  I’m learning that the trick, however, is to a) mitigate those moments later with a sense of perspective, and b) try to learn something from them.

 Today, for example, I was at law school for most of the day attending classes.  After spending lunch with my wife, I was sitting in the gazebo waiting for class.  The sky darkened and it started to rain.  I had 30 minutes before my next class, so I thought I would wait it out. 

That turned out to be a bad idea.

Over the next few minutes, the weather turned progressively worse.  The rain fell in giant drops and the wind began to gust- I’m certainly no meteorologist, but it had to have been over twenty miles per hour at times.  This caused the rain to blow sideways, which made the primitive shelter of a gazebo mostly ineffective.  However, the other option was to run fifty feet through a veritable maelstrom toward the building- an option that would have left me thoroughly soaked from head to toe.

So I stood in the gazebo and turned my back against the wind.  I stood there for the next 15 minutes, wave after wave of water hitting my jeans.  Eventually it started to hail.  Finally, it let up and I was able to make a break for class.

Not having time to change, I had to sit through my next three classes in soaking wet jeans, socks and shoes.  Not the funnest experience of my life. 

It’s next to impossible to be happy throughout that entire experience- without being somewhat insane- but there’s also no reason to let something like that destroy your whole day. 

When things of that nature happen to me, I generally find solace in the simple fact that what’s done is done.  I should have went in earlier, but the truth is that I didn’t.  Bemoaning my fate while sitting in class wouldn’t have dried my pants any faster, or made me feel better.  Like most humans, if I started looking back on my life and listing the things I would have done differently if given a second chance I could write a whole book.  But, when done with a rueful attitude, such an activity is largely a fruitless endeavor.  When things don’t go your way, it’s better to ask how could it have turned out worse?  At the time, it seemed like a pretty big deal, but I could have been soaked completely, missed class, or even gotten sick.  But I didn’t.  In the long run, getting my jeans wet and having to sit through three law school classes is not the end of the world.  Just being able to sit in a law school class is an accomplishment- wet jeans or not.  Of course, I didn’t see things so picturesquesly as I sat there cold and wet in class- but after I got home, I managed to put things in perspective, instead of allowing my negative emotions to control the situation and causing further emotional turmoil.  So, it was a learning experience, and for that reason I’m glad it happened.

To be clear, though, I’d rather it not happen again.