You are responsible for your day and your life. I read an article about the life of Duke, who promoted cigarettes by using a machine to cut them to size, sealing the ends, and marketing them to the USA and Britain and the world. The carefully researched article, succinct and in easy to read popular style, is inspired by a biography of Duke which has been published. The article also looks at Kalashnikov and Nobel. The article ends with Kalashnikov saying that what is done with his invention depends on action by governments. I was amused to read that a premature obituary of Nobel which described him as an agent of death upset him so that he donated money for the Nobel peace prize. I shall go back to the question of cigarettes because it is simpler. You can choose whether to smoke a cigarette. You can choose whether to buy cigarettes. You can choose whether to buy them for others. You can choose whether to sit in smoky places and smoke over others.
I admit it is easier for me because I am a lifelong non-smoker and am not addicted. But my parents both smoked. When my father was told by a doctor to give up smoking, my father did so immediately. (Admittedly I now know from personality typing in Myers Briggs that my father was that personality type.)
Let's continue to look at the way we blame others. My uncle on his deathbed in hospital c 2005 was still blaming his parents who had died two decades earlier in the 1950s and/or 1960s. My son who was taking an exam for his MA in psycho-sometric studies was aghast and amused that his great-uncle was still blaming parents who had died years earlier. (My son still blames me for what I did when he was a child ten or more years ago, but I'm alive, but uncle's parents had been dead for two decades.)
Look around you at people who are dying of smoking or cancer or overweight (all those people with paunches) and won't change their smoking habits or diet or do exercise. Yet they, and we, blame the inventors of the food, drink, or cigarettes. Or the distributors.
I find it easy to condemn the cigarette smokers who are living OK, starting to get ill, trying to give up, or saying what's the use it's now too late. My problem is eating. But you can give up smoking altogether. You cannot giving up eating altogether. You have to make choices at every meal.
Well, I must go off and eat fruit and do some exercise. Because I know that I cannot change the past. I can condemn the people of the past. But the only thing I can control is my thoughts, attitudes and actions today.
You can sometimes indulge. You can have a day off, or a week off. I can overeat, trying new foods at the World Travel Market, when visiting countries on business or holiday. But your life must form a sensible pattern. Like a sea-saw, bad habits which lead down to death must be balanced by those which lead up to good health.
Maybe you can drink for five days and give up for one or two days a week. I think that's just starting the habit of giving up.
What about giving up food. Traditionally, long before the modern knowledge about diets, Jews fasted for one day a year. (The orthodox have other fasting days.) Moslems fast during daylight hours for a month.
The latest drink reduction idea is two non-drinking days. I have one friend who goes without drinking after the indulgence of the Christmas holidays for the months of January to March. You can look at your lifetime, your year, your week, your day, and plan your healthy lifestyle. That is your responsibility, your control, your pain and your gain.
I admit it is easier for me because I am a lifelong non-smoker and am not addicted. But my parents both smoked. When my father was told by a doctor to give up smoking, my father did so immediately. (Admittedly I now know from personality typing in Myers Briggs that my father was that personality type.)
Let's continue to look at the way we blame others. My uncle on his deathbed in hospital c 2005 was still blaming his parents who had died two decades earlier in the 1950s and/or 1960s. My son who was taking an exam for his MA in psycho-sometric studies was aghast and amused that his great-uncle was still blaming parents who had died years earlier. (My son still blames me for what I did when he was a child ten or more years ago, but I'm alive, but uncle's parents had been dead for two decades.)
Look around you at people who are dying of smoking or cancer or overweight (all those people with paunches) and won't change their smoking habits or diet or do exercise. Yet they, and we, blame the inventors of the food, drink, or cigarettes. Or the distributors.
I find it easy to condemn the cigarette smokers who are living OK, starting to get ill, trying to give up, or saying what's the use it's now too late. My problem is eating. But you can give up smoking altogether. You cannot giving up eating altogether. You have to make choices at every meal.
Well, I must go off and eat fruit and do some exercise. Because I know that I cannot change the past. I can condemn the people of the past. But the only thing I can control is my thoughts, attitudes and actions today.
You can sometimes indulge. You can have a day off, or a week off. I can overeat, trying new foods at the World Travel Market, when visiting countries on business or holiday. But your life must form a sensible pattern. Like a sea-saw, bad habits which lead down to death must be balanced by those which lead up to good health.
Maybe you can drink for five days and give up for one or two days a week. I think that's just starting the habit of giving up.
What about giving up food. Traditionally, long before the modern knowledge about diets, Jews fasted for one day a year. (The orthodox have other fasting days.) Moslems fast during daylight hours for a month.
The latest drink reduction idea is two non-drinking days. I have one friend who goes without drinking after the indulgence of the Christmas holidays for the months of January to March. You can look at your lifetime, your year, your week, your day, and plan your healthy lifestyle. That is your responsibility, your control, your pain and your gain.
No comments:
Post a Comment