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For those of you that haven’t discovered 43things.com – check it out. It’s a little more than just another one of those new fangled Web 2.0-y sites to keep up with. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: since you last logged on, who has superpoked you / round-house kicked your friends / trout-slapped their cat / uploaded pictures of what happened last night (reality check: we were all there – we know what happened!) / twittered / tweeted each other etc.

43things consists of micro-communities of people with the same goal – you can “cheer” each other, leave comments, get advice from those who have achieved the goal – and, of course (the real purpose of the site), click on the targeted pay-per-click adverts which appear alongside each entry.

Of the few of my selected goals, quit smoking is the one I check in on pretty much every day. Most people on there do a daily update – just little random story-ettes like “just stuck a new patch on my patch-arm” or “wanted a smoke pretty bad while I was on the can this morning”.

But I was on there today and noticed that there was someone in my 6529-strong quit smoking group who had as one of their accomplished goals (I’m not kidding here): to start smoking.

Start smoking? A life goal? Just out of curiosity, I went to take a look – I was astounded to find there is a 260-something strong contingent of people who are of a like mind. People who are wanting to start smoking and are asking for advice such as “what brand should I smoke?”, “how many should I aim to smoke a day to start with?”

I was just about to lay into some of these people, but then I thought: “you know what – I can’t”. They are no more likely to listen to me – listen to anyone - as I was when I was in the same position. If you tell someone not to do something, they’re a lot more likely to go and do it out of defiance, intrigue, curiosity – whatever.

And the opposite is plain irresponsible (there are actually people on there encouraging non-smokers to smoke – that’s just wrong, imho).

So – what do you do? I struggled with it for a while. Some of these I-think-I-wanna-smokers have even educated themselves pretty well on the risks and the downsides to smoking and want to do it anyway. It doesn’t seem like they can be stopped. Especially as they have already taken the step to publicly announce their stated goal on a goal-oriented website: that they want to start smoking.

All I would say or advise would be this: don’t see it as starting smoking. See it as making a conscious decision to take on an addiction that is extremely hard to get rid of. An addition from which some (in fact: most) people just cannot stand the pain of withdrawal and are unable to shake. Don’t for one minute believe that you will not get addicted. Slowly but surely you will – and by that time it’s too late. If that’s really what you want - if that’s your goal - you know what … I’d do Camel Lights. I liked them.

They used to say that a million monkeys typing on a million keyboards for an infinite amount of time would come up with something useful, like the entire works of Shakespeare.

This theory could never really be tested until the internet came along. And now, with the advent of WordPress and free hosting, we’ve got millions upon millions of monkeys, hammering daily on their keyboards and pressing the “Publish” button. The ratio of wheat to chaff ain’t too good though – and I certainly have not been reading many of Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies at blogspot.com.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some great writers out there doing some great work – I am subscribed to and read a number of blogs pretty much every day. But with the entry barrier guarding the world of nouveau publishing essentially having been taken away, it seems that any old monkey with a keyboard is doing it. Badly.

The reason I’m even writing about this is because I found a bunch of my smoking articles stolen and republished on a few monkeys’ sites. Sure this happens to everyone – but not giving me credit and not even spelling my name right is not fair.

A quick look around the blogosphere kinda confirms that blogs fall into two types. One type has 99% of the market. The other 1% need to shape up their act. Here are some tips for you 1% slackers:

1. If you’re using WordPress, a red squiggly line appears under words when you’ve spelled them incorrectly. Ignore this – correct spelling is so last century.

2. Grammar! Don’t make me laugh. Prepositions were born to end sentences with.

3. Litter your whole damn site with advertisements and affiliate program banners. Make people fight through the flashing “You have won a <insert flavor of the week here>” links to get to the little content you have.

4. In fact, you don’t need content. Just steal it from someone else (see above). Grrr!

5. Choose a totally egregious theme from the available theme downloads. Like purple text on a lime green background.

6. Write about 20 posts a day for the first week, then just stop.

Let’s just see where this ends up. Oh, any by the way, it was originally posted at http://pressreturn.com. So, if you’re not there, you’re on a monkey blog.

I don’t mean all the usual stuff: it’s bad for your lungs, it stunts your growth, it gives you gangrenous extremities. We all know that.

What I was wondering as I was struggling very hard with day 9, was “is there anything that I learned from smoking that I might otherwise not have learned?” In other words, is there anything positive that I can take away from years of something which is almost always portrayed in a negative way?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Anything I do present here should by no means be seen as a reason for a non-smoker to go out and buy a carton of Camel Lights in the quest of these things – far from it. But, being fairly optimistic about everything – there’s got to have been something that was of some use to me:

1. Time Management

Smokers are excellent at managing their time. Or, I should say: excellent at managing their time around their smoking. No matter how busy they are, how many projects are late or approaching their deadline, how late they are to pick up the kids/meet the wife/be on-time for the appointment – there’s always a few minutes for a cigarette.

Let’s just say 3 minutes for each cigarette (to get to where it’s going to be smoked, to light it, smoke it, then go back to where you started). Pack a day. That’s a whole hour per day, every day, that has been set aside purely to appease the nicodemon.

OK – so no more smoking … what to do with that extra time? There’s got to be something else extremely important that needs doing – maybe not 20 times a day.

2. Financial planning

Takes a lot of dedicated cash juggling to always have enough money on you to buy the next pack/carton of cigarettes.

A smoker’s train of thought …

If I go out and buy the sandwich for lunch first, then I won’t have enough cash left to buy the pack of cigarettes on the way back to the office. And I don’t think I’ve got enough to get through the afternoon. Doesn’t matter that it’s raining – I’ll go to the bank first – get more cash out (I’ll have a smoke on the way – yeah!), then I’ll buy a pack of cigarettes on the way to the sandwich shop – that way the sandwich will still be hot by the time I get back and I won’t risk having to stand in line at the cigarette stand.

Bit short of cash at the end of the month? Use credit cards. Or don’t buy food or something. After all – the cigarettes are an absolute life necessity, aren’t they?

3. Prioritizing

The #1 priority for any smoker is the cigarettes. Number one. Nothing comes above it. The cat can wait to be fed. Those people that I invited out for a drink: they can wait. Those people in the meeting waiting for me? They can wait too.

4. Being extra good at socializing and breaking the ice

All smokers have an understanding among themselves that they are the nouveau lepers – the outcasts of the 21st century, and that they must stand together in the face of tuts, hard stares and disapproving looks from grannies with big handbags and women pushing babies through their downstream smoke.

Nowhere is this solidarity more prevalent than outside a bar. Anywhere else, you’re seen as a bit of a freak to go up to someone and say something ‘just coz’. But, because you’re out there smoking and they are too – there’s nothing wrong with a “how’s it going?” or “hey there – damn it’s almost too cold to smoke isn’t it?”. The latter generally gets a laugh and gets the conversation going. In fact, so good is this camaraderie between smokers, I’ve actually heard of single girls (and guys) taking up smoking, in order to have a greater shot at meeting someone outside.

In summary, yep – there are a few things – a few (albeit very tenuous) positives. Some aren’t even positives – they’re just downright selfish. Do they outweigh the negatives? Of course not. Could these things be learned elsewhere – some other way? Of course.

Got to keep thinking positive though!

Just imagine for a minute sitting on a bench in a park, fast food brown bag on your lap – quietly eating your lunch. The birds are singing, the air is warm, there’s a slight breeze – thirty minutes until you need to be back at the office – life is good.

Now imagine the same scene, but being bothered by every fifth passer-by with “Can I bum a fry, dude?” or “‘Scuse me. ‘Scuse meee. ‘Scuuuuuse me!!! Hey – yeah, can I buy a fry off you?”

It just wouldn’t happen, would it? Nobody bums fries. If you really want fries, you go and buy some, right? Even if you don’t want the whole box of them – maybe you want just a few fries. Admittedly, it’s probably acceptable for a girlfriend/wife to just take a guy’s fries without asking – every girl knows that fries that she didn’t order don’t have any calories in them.

But in the world of the smoker, this is a constant annoyance. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world – I noticed this on a daily basis. I could be walking down the street, standing outside a pub, sitting in a park – someone would come up to me – even cross the street to get to me – in order to ask for a cigarette.

These things aren’t cheap – so why on earth would you just give them away to random people who asked for them? Why can’t they go any buy their own? If you smoke, there’s a price. Daily. $5. Haven’t got $5? Well, no smoking for you.

“No” was my answer. No, no, no. I don’t have the funds to support your addiction as well as mine. And pretty often, these people look genuinely shocked and offended that you said no!

I don’t face this problem any more. Oh, and just for the record – no – you cannot bum a fry. I intend to eat every last one of them.

One thing that definitely was not going to be happening during the ‘quit’ was any less time out and about if you get my drift.

It’s said that alcohol actually helps metabolize nicotine out of your body faster (this is one of the reasons why smokers smoke way more when they’re out drinking – I know I did, that’s for sure). But once the nicotine was gone (after day 3) – it was back to the beer for pure enjoyment purposes – its beneficial medicinal qualities are no longer required.

A little too much enjoyment last evening. On a school night too. But, what the heck – it was fun to hang out with friends, and nowhere near as difficult being around smokers as I thought it was going to be. It was harder seeing others smoking last time I quit.

Just got to face facts: there’s smoking everywhere. You only notice it when you’re really looking for it. It’s a bit like the New Car syndrome – you buy a new Whatsit ZX200 GTi in a color you invented yourself it’s that rare, and then not one week after driving it off the lot, it seems that everyone’s got one.

OK, so those who want to quit smoking – why on earth would you trade “nicotine dependence at $5 per pack per day” for “nicotine dependence at $55 per pack per week”?

I’m talking, of course, about “The Patch”. I just don’t get it. As far as I’m concerned, the best thing you can do with these things is to stick them over your mouth so that you can’t get the cigarettes in.

Read the rest of this »

Quitting smoking has a couple of milestones. The first one (and by far the most painful) is getting over the withdrawal from nicotine. This milestone is just 3 days after the last cigarette – after that time, most of the nicotine has been metabolized out of the body.

The withdrawal pains are similar to the feelings of not having had a cigarette after a long flight for example – when all the smokers are clambering to get outside the terminal and take that first puff. Read the rest of this »

When you quit smoking, you’re constantly looking for reasons to back up your decision to quit. The nicodevil is constantly whispering into your ear: “Just one won’t hurt. Go on. Have a smoke. You’ve done well so far – you’ve earned one”

Here are some good reasons to ignore him. Pick the situation you’re happier with.

Read the rest of this »

Today is day #2 of not smoking. Again. I’ve done this many, many times and always gone back to it for one reason or another. Reason number one I suppose, is that I actually enjoy it. Read the rest of this »

Keeping a healthy level of sanity when you’re in an office on your own all day every day takes some creative thinking.

When you get used to the idea that there isn’t a pointy-haired leader constantly checking over your shoulder to see that you’re “really working” (whatever that means) – you need to find ways to motivate and organize yourself. Read the rest of this »