So we had the Mayan calendar which didn’t turn out to be all that accurate.  Now we have the New England calendar.  It’s still 365 days but July is 10 days long, August 5 days and we have 63 days of  February.  I can see why people in Seattle and London kill themselves.  It’s not the complete lack of Vitamin D it’s the never ending monotony of the drudgery.  To quote a close friend, “It just never stops ending around here”.  (If you have any idea what that means e-mail me because I’m lost).  These 28 days of February have gone by slower than my 28 day stint in rehab (the second time).

Giving serious consideration of turning my thoughts of harming myself and others into actions I decided it was time for a change.  This made me start thinking about change.  First off, why do people only want to change things they actually enjoy?  Bad marriage? Terrible job? Horrible boss?  Hang in there for another twenty years or so.    ”What doesn’t kill you . . . .” News flash: will eventually kill you if you insist on enduring it long enough.

People insist on changing habits they ultimately enjoy.  Now before we go any further if you have a habit over which you are powerless and your life is unmanageable I’ll meet you in a church basement.  But what if you are powerless but its manageable?  Or what if you are still powerful but just enjoy it?  The LOL quit smoking.  I am very impressed and how can I not be given her hourly irritability (even worse than usual) as a reminder of the ongoing accomplishment.  Yes there are studies linking smoking to health problems.  But I also know people who chain smoke from their teens well into their 90′s.   I guess its expensive but so is filling your gas tank.  People don’t walk more and drive less.

Let’s assume that each cigarette takes 3 seconds of your life.  A pack of cigarettes costing you a minute.  Pack a day would mean you are losing seven minutes a week.  Two weeks you would lose an hour.  Smoke for a year and you lose a day of your existence.

Now you lose that day at the end.  So when you are sitting in that nursing home, broke, all friends dead, kids and grandkids afraid to visit, waiting, no begging for the end are you really going to wish you had that day back?  No f-ing way.   You’ll be puffing like Rick James on a crack pipe saying, “For the love of God end this, please”.

I decided I would give up the poppy tea and Red Bull and try to improve my attitude.  Well the withdrawal which involved little or no sleep for a week certainly didn’t improve my attitude.  As I spent another day feeling like death warmed over I asked myself why I was quitting?  I could give you a million answers (expense, legality, health) but not a single reason.

Thank God a new shipment arrived after about eight days.  You ain’t going to find me in that nursing home.

KOKO