Story of a 19-year-old
She read this one more time - Smoking Kills. Making sure that her long waves of hair don't reach the flame, she lights a cigarette. It makes her feel good, that's what matters. She loathes the fact that people associate 'smoking' and 'death' so quickly. “It's as if a plain boring life isn't going to kill anybody,” she says. Her lips are losing its pink shade slowly, but she doesn't define beauty physically. She wears red because she's fierce.
Nope. She only wishes she could tell you that.
"I am just a girl next door with smoking habits. Somehow, that burn in my mouth and smoke around my eyes bestow me a fierce look. I usually get one office break for lunch, but I get a few more if I am a smoker. What the heck!" said the girl. "I don't remember when I started smoking exactly. But what I remember distinctly is that I used to be the most active girl in school and the most enthusiastic one in sports. But yesterday something happened. I don't want to tell you which shitty apartment I live in, but yes, the elevator wasn't working. I live on the second floor but the way up by the staircases - never taking it again. Funnily, my school teacher would call me a vivacious girl. Slowly but surely something is changing in me."
Meanwhile Around Her
Source: Ketto India
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention life expectancy of a chain smoker is reduced by ten years than usual. Living at least 10 years shorter is not less worse. There are many cities around the world where children are born with the lungs of a heavy smoker. By the shining age of twenty-one, they already are low in stamina and resilience. These cities are fighting causes with greater impacts: climate change, man-made pollution, adulteration, epidemic, and smoking is just one bit of them. There exist many fortunate countries where issues like climate change and pollution haven't taken a toll on its children. But they have lost the battle somewhere else.
"Nearly 23 percent of high school students use tobacco products, and more than 90 percent of those teens smoke cigarettes, cigars, hookahs or pipes," according to the report from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Perhaps a car crash is worse and painful and shocking but smoking kills silently.
Back to her
People have suggested her a lot of different ways in which she could quit smoking. "Chew a gum" was the best advice given to her. So much that she quit chewing gums and started smoking quite excessively once again. "It's like whenever I think to quit smoking, I need a cigarette to think," she said. But the truth was she still hadn’t gotten rid of the social stigma in her mind. Would she still look so confident and relaxed without a cig again? At nineteen, her only reason to start smoking was to stand out from the crowd.
Years after nicotine addiction and a poor health, she is compelled to think of what actually made her stand out. She now knows what makes her unique and comfortable. I believe her.
"I see that people get attracted to more confident personalities around them wishing they had the same infectious energy. Maybe in school, this [smoking] was something they found cool and I followed the lead. But at 25, this definitely isn't any special trait. It wasn't even then, but okay. I realized I had to do much more to stand out instead of just spending that time harming my health. I work a lot and stress even more. But I have found a solution to that. I call/annoy my loved ones more now. They call me a chatterbox." said the girl (who in the end quit smoking after trying one hundred times).
“The truth is that nicotine is the least of any smoker’s problems.’’ says Gregor Hens, German author.
Little Thing of the Month: Trying