Failure Is Like Childbirth: The Blessings Delivered Are Small and Well Disguised
Few of us actually perceive our failed attempts as learning experiences as one aspect of the human condition is the tendency to vigorously defend our actions and our belief systems, sometimes to our detriment. For the past century or so the most popular defense mechanism against failure or device to hide behind, appears to be denial:
Block the memory, ergo;
It never happened.
Too bad, since most of our learning is experiential and blocking creative efforts that might change our thinking or behavior from memory, simply invites us to repeat the offenses.
Hiding my failures from myself and others is living in denial;
I’m living in denial because that’s my defense mechanism;
While attempting to succeed I remain in a state of denial. How do I get out? ;
Coping, the most prominent alibi.
In spite of the fact that I had reduced my smoking to three or four cigarettes a day, my habitual use of Nicorette had doubled in less than six months and I was actually chewing 440 pieces at a cost of over $150 per month, unbelievably I was both smoking and chewing nicotine! I asked my pharmacist if one year was considered a reasonable time for a person to expect the Nicorette program to be effective. She started laughing and told me it was common for people “to chew this stuff for five or six years,” and that some never stop. Geez, I was demoralized and wondered how junkies manage! Not for long however, as I quickly began a search for an alternative to Nicorette, and discovered Trident White, the gum that is “clinically shown to whiten teeth,” and guess what? It does.
I know this because Celestial Seasonings’ Vanilla Hazelnut tea served with one packet of Splenda is a zero-cal appetite suppressant and component of my created diet, but tends to leave stains on my teeth, which Trident’s little white squares prevents, ta da. So, instead of carving $200 per month out of my micro-budget on cessation, I reduced the amount to $10.50, and the placebo actually works.
Of the gazillion dollars spent on anti-smoking ads, I was fascinated by just one: The actors created familiar activities that we accomplish hundreds of times a day. In one scenario, the actors portrayed smokers in cessation attempting to re-learn how to pour and drink a cup of coffee, open a door, or drive, etc., it is hysterical and effective. I could view, forever unfazed, thousands of images depicting charred lungs without making a connection on a visceral level, however the pathetic imbeciles in the ads fumbling & bumbling around like fools unable to function without a cigarette, caught my attention!!! It was however, my desire to lose weight that finally took precedence. I had abandoned as impossible a non-smoking regime in lieu of an easier set of goals. Calories In vs. Calories Out!!
Unfortunately, my plan was contingent on my ability to breathe, an accomplishment compromised by 61 years of smoking. Try as I might, one or two minutes per each workout on my new Pro-Form Elliptical was all I could manage. My newly created regime consisted of consuming 1,200 calories per day while burning 1,000 of them in two 1 hour sessions each. The immediate challenge was to stay on the machine for more than two minutes per day!!! Since my damaged lungs were keeping me from my weight loss goal, the decision to quit smoking became significantly simplified. Lame excuses, ridiculous pretenses, alibis, blah, blah, blah, smokers know the drill, non-smokers don’t care.
That is exactly how I quit smoking. Happily, I have not met the unrealistic weight loss goals which I purposefully set at the beginning of my created regime, but have at last landed on the healthy side of delusional.
