Thank you for not smoking

If you've been following me on Facebook, you've probably seen me battling against smoking for the last few years. Every so often, I get fed up and quit for several months. I don't find it at all hard to stop; once the desire goes, I just don't smoke, because I don't like it. But then something happens, I say to hell with it, and have a cigarette, usually followed by another one, and another one, and before I know it, I'm smoking again.

The challenge for me is to break the cycle that comes around after a few months, when I want a cigarette and think to myself, "what's the worst that can happen?" (Apart from dying of cancer, of course, but when I'm depressed or pissed off, I couldn't really care about that.) I don't need to give myself a daily or weekly reward to wean myself off, and I don't smoke enough for the trick of putting the tobacco money in a jar to be effective. What I need is to promise myself something fun for making it through the "what the hell" stage, so I'll feel like there's something I'd be losing out on if I weaken.

What I decided was to set myself clear milestones for a whole year, building up to a big reward if I make it all the way through. Every couple of months seemed right, since that's a long enough period to be an achievement, but not so long that it seemed impossible. Being a bit of a pagan hippie tree-hugger, I decided to hook my rewards into the main pagan seasonal festivals (roughly the quarter days and cross-quarter days, if you want to get fancy). I decided to make my official start date the summer solstice. I actually stopped a few days earlier, but who's counting?

I didn't want to bribe myself with little trinkets. There's very little I actually want in the way of possessions. Instead, I wanted to choose things that would make me happy. In many cases, they're not even particularly big things, just stuff we haven't got around to, and this is an excuse to kill two birds with one stone.

Anyway, here's what I promised myself:

Lughnasadh (1 Aug): Anna will cook us a candlelit dinner at home

Autumn equinox (23 Sept): we repaint our bedroom

Samhain (1 Nov): I repaint my office
Winter solstice (Dec 22): I get my first tattoo

Imbolc (1 Feb): New cowboy hat
Spring equinox (20 Mar): Anna makes me a sculpture of my choice
Beltane (1 May): Anna's choice

Summer solstice (20 June): Road trip across America

That's the big incentive. I've wanted to take an epic road trip ever since encountering Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and Easy Rider as a teenager. I've now got a year to plan it, save up and earn it. Maybe I'll go up to Maine, maybe across California, or maybe follow the Lewis and Clark route to the Pacific North-West. Maybe I'll drive, maybe I'll get a motorcycle, maybe I'll go by train. Maybe I'll get some sort of mobile wifi and keep working as I go, maybe I'll take a few weeks off. Maybe I'll camp, maybe I'll stay in motels, maybe I'll couch-surf my way. I don't know. But it'll be a lot of fun planning it.

Wish me luck!