The Only Thing That I Regret

I decided to quit smoking again. This is not my first attempt, and I really hope it will be my last.

I downloaded an app called Smoke Free, which is the same app I usually use whenever I decide to quit. When I opened it, I noticed that it was still set to my previous quit date. That was almost a year ago, maybe a year minus ten days or so.

Seeing that date made me think. I started wondering what my life would look like today if I had actually stayed smoke free all that time. If I had stuck with it, I would have been approaching twelve months without smoking. That thought hit me harder than I expected and made me regret going back to smoking more than I normally do.

Several months ago, I wrote an article about mistakes. I said that I have made plenty of them, and some of those mistakes cost me months or even years of my life. Still, I never truly regretted any of them because every mistake taught me something valuable. That is how we learn and how we grow.

There was only one exception. Smoking.

Smoking is the one thing I genuinely regret. I started at a very young age, around sixth grade, and it has cost me more than I can put into words. It damaged my lungs, affected my health, and took much more from me than just money.

Speaking of money, sometimes I try to estimate how much I have spent on smoking over the years. The number is honestly shocking. When you consider how long I have been smoking and add even a modest interest rate, the total easily reaches thousands of dollars. It might sound exaggerated to some people, but I do not think it is.

And when I say smoking, I am not talking only about cigarettes. Over the years, I tried many different forms of smoking, including drugs. Looking back now, I can clearly see how much those choices cost me.

Maybe that is why seeing that old quit date affected me so much. It reminded me that every day I stay smoke free is something I gain back, while every day I continue smoking is something I lose. This time, I hope I finally get it right.