quit smoking support @ woofmang.com people helping people beat the addiction to nicotine
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
martinhaus
Quit Date: August 4, 2004
Posts: 17 Location: Mississippi Gulf Coast
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 12:21 AM Post subject: Choosing Life |
|
|
Choosing Life, hmmmmm this is a real conundrum for me. I am definitely choosing to not smoke. This is not the problem. I have worked for almost 24 years in an emergency room as a registered nurse. I have seen probably too much. Much more than the average citizen is privy to. At any rate life is great as long as you are able to recognize the fact that you are alive. My problem is this. Many years ago I decided that living a LONG life is not necessarily (spelling?) for me. If I am functional fine but I do NOT want to become a fixture in some long term care facilities vegetable garden. I don't know if anyone understands where I am going with this and I am not really sure if I understand where I am going with it. I think it is just that living longer is not a real selling point for me. Living better, healthier, happier these all work, but living longer doesn't do it for me. Sorry if this bothers some, I am sure it will, this is just something that I needed to say and I don't even know why. _________________
Bonnie |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
Tammy
Quit Date: February 16, 2004
Posts: 2565 Location: Florida
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 1:54 AM Post subject: |
|
|
Bonnie, I hope the thought you are having isn't like : 'every body has to die of something.'? My husband use to say that all of the time when the subject of quitting smoking came up. Oh he wanted to live healthy and happy while smoking but when he found out that he needed a double by pass immediatly because where the blockage was a heart attack would kill him. He changed his tune. I agree I don't want to be kept alive with no quality of life but I don't want to allow any excuses to sneak in that would give me cause to ever light up again. _________________
Tammy
Free and loving it! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
martinhaus
Quit Date: August 4, 2004
Posts: 17 Location: Mississippi Gulf Coast
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 2:44 AM Post subject: Choosing Life |
|
|
Tammy,
No this is not where I am going with this. There is no excuse for lighting up again except "I want to smoke". This is the only reason/excuse for smoking. Yes everyone dies, this is a fact, it is the next step in the progression of our lives. I choose daily and sometimes minute by minute to not light up. Just needed to express that maybe for some people longevity is not really an issue. Quality of life is much more important and how greatly we can improve that quality if we do not choose nicotine. In other words I don't especially want to live longer I just want to live better and choosing to be free of nicotine allows me to live better on many levels. Physically, financially, socially etc, etc. _________________
Bonnie |
|
Back to top |
|
|
tsjay49
Quit Date: January 1, 2004
Posts: 1863 Location: Kentucky
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 7:47 AM Post subject: |
|
|
RIGHT ON, BONNIE!
Who wants to sit around at some rest home staring off into space, drooling, soiling our pants, not knowing who we are, not knowing who the people around us are, etc.
Just let me live until I die, as some song says.
It truly is the QUALITY of life that matters, not the length. But, like you said, the quality of life is better without the cigs.
Tom _________________
If a person with Multiple Personality Disorder threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
kevin Site Admin
Quit Date: -
Posts: 9538 Location: cincinnati, oh
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 7:57 AM Post subject: |
|
|
i understand what you're saying, Bonnie; i would never want to be kept functioning past my "useful" (for lack of a better term) life span. when i say, "choose life", i mean it in the broadest sense; i.e., choosing life as opposed to choosing death, which is what we do when we smoke.
i'm irish, and was brought up catholic, and the fatalism of both of those influences is still pretty strong for me; i don't really believe that we can do anything to add even a moment to the length of our lives. when it's our time, it's our time.
but, while we're here, we can choose joy, or we can choose misery. "quality of life" is a good a way as any to put it. _________________
keep choosing life!
kevin
the zen of the quit |
|
Back to top |
|
|
law_girl_1969
Quit Date: -
Posts: 626 Location: Freeburg, Illinois
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 9:13 AM Post subject: |
|
|
Bonnie, I think I totally see what you mean, and I'm quite the same way. On the one hand, I long to live long enough to see my kids grown and happy and maybe have families of their own. But with each new invention that promises to keep us alive longer and longer...I don't always smile.
When I choose life, I am choosing to make the most of every minute on earth, and that means not ruining it by being a slave to my addiction. _________________
Lynn
"There are those who think they can and those who think they can't and they are both right." Henry Ford |
|
Back to top |
|
|
ms_tapestry
Quit Date: October 21, 2009
Posts: 2574 Location: Seminole, TX
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 10:34 AM Post subject: |
|
|
The timing of the end of our life or another's is not our choice. I believe we are all here for a reason. We are here to learn about ourselves and about each other. I've learned the most important things from the most surprising sources.
I was estranged from my mother for several years, by mutual choice. She moved away to another city and when she moved back home she was terminally ill. She moved in with my grandmother and soon was almost totally incapacitated. I became one of her caretakers, sharing the burden with my grandmother. I bathed her, I feed her, I changed her clothing, I read to her, I watched her die. I will never say I am glad her life ended that way. But somehow because it did we found a way to forgive, to heal. The experience changed me forever, for the better.
I can't know how my life will end. I can only choose how I will live it. I hope when I come to the end that the gifts I have given to others evens out with the gifts I have received from others. _________________
Tonya
You must do the very thing you think you cannot do.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Marigrrl
Quit Date: December 1, 2010
Posts: 894 Location: New York
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 10:53 AM Post subject: |
|
|
tsjay49 wrote: |
RIGHT ON, BONNIE!
Who wants to sit around at some rest home staring off into space, drooling, soiling our pants, not knowing who we are, not knowing who the people around us are, etc.
Just let me live until I die, as some song says.
It truly is the QUALITY of life that matters, not the length. But, like you said, the quality of life is better without the cigs.
Tom |
Tom's post made me laugh .
Unfortunately you can't pick and choose what will happen to you in the future, when you will die, how long you will live etc. THe most important thing is making the best of it till you get there. Life is a gift.
Mariko _________________
Follow Your Bliss |
|
Back to top |
|
|
martinhaus
Quit Date: August 4, 2004
Posts: 17 Location: Mississippi Gulf Coast
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 2:26 PM Post subject: |
|
|
Toms post made me laugh too, although now that song that he referred to keeps running through my head but I can't remember the words or who did it.
Mariko, you are right, no one can choose when or how their life will end, but we can make the choice to live it as well as possible till it does end. Living free of nicotine addiction has already improved my life and how I feel about myself. Every day I think about smoking, I certainly hope that goes away someday but every day I remember how bad the coughing was, how bad the stink was, how much they were costing me and choose to live better.
Kevin, I am glad that you understand. _________________
Bonnie |
|
Back to top |
|
|
bake10
Quit Date: October 20, 2004
Posts: 407 Location: Michigan
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 2:28 PM Post subject: |
|
|
I agree with you Bonnie, i think that way all the time. i don't want to be this old lady stuck in some stinky nursing home. Jeri |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Cowgirl UP!
Quit Date: July 26, 2004
Posts: 5029 Location: Ala
|
Posted: September 10, 2004 4:23 PM Post subject: |
|
|
I agree that I do not wish to live past the point where I become a burden on anyone but neither do I wish do hasten my demise...that is where I choose to live...to me it means living each day as if it could be my last. I try not to leave too much undone and hope to not go to bed knowing I may have hurt someone else without saying I am sorry. It has taken me awhile to get here..but this is where I am and where I want to be. I am glad you brought this up Bonnie, now for once (since I quit smoking) I know where I am.
Kay _________________
All with a little help from my friends, COWGIRL UP |
|
Back to top |
|
|
martinhaus
Quit Date: August 4, 2004
Posts: 17 Location: Mississippi Gulf Coast
|
Posted: September 11, 2004 12:50 AM Post subject: |
|
|
Hi Kay,
I am glad that my little rant helped you work some things out. Maybe I am not as nuts as I thought I was. _________________
Bonnie |
|
Back to top |
|
|
terryg
Quit Date: May 13, 2004
Posts: 177 Location: washington
|
Posted: September 11, 2004 8:09 PM Post subject: |
|
|
I want to live forever.... I know its imposible.... so..... 100 will do.
Maybe Im selfish, maybe im crazy.
I pray every day for a long productive life and I figured out 121 days ago that I would need to give up the cigs if I was to have any chance at this long life I dream of.
Terry |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|