They say that a smoker loses seven minutes of life every time they smoke a cigarette. One cigarette equals seven minutes. For most people, this is probably not a big deterrent. Really, their last seven minutes will probably be just like the seven minutes before it: sitting there, cursing themselves for not listening to their kids when they told them smoking would kill them, trying to drown out the sound of the oxygen tank or the ventilator or whatever. It's only seven minutes.
What if, though, in your last seven minutes, you were actually doing something you loved? What if you were completely healthy and cigarettes did no damage but subtract time? What if you were painting, making love, or eating a really great sandwich? For the rest of eternity, would you most regret the unfinished work, the kiss you would never feel, the delicious combination of turkey and sprouts that would never be eaten? I am willing to bet that if a person was not sick, they would keenly feel the loss of those last seven minutes, even thinking about their last cigarette and blaming it and it alone for their wasted sandwich.
Of course, many smokers are probably like me and they are A) bad at math, and B) don't like thinking about all those seven-minute segments, added up, because that would lead them to C) many years they will never get to live. And D) think, well, it is only seven minutes.
What would you do in your last seven minutes?
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4 comments:
That's a heck of a question. I guess it would entirely depend on how old I was when I get my last seven minutes.
Hopefully I'll spend it with someone I love. And hopefully she'll go at the same time so neither of us have to live without the other. Isn't that sickeningly romantic of me?
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Yes, it is. But who said romance to a sickening degree is a bad thing? I submit that it is not!
Ah, but you're not supposed to be all butch and macho and driving forklifts and stuff like me. Even though I have a *ahem* soft spot for romantic comedies and most (ok, all) of my manuscripts feature a prominent love story throughout.
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If you think about it, you would probably be smoking in that last seven minutes. So, each cigarette you smoke now, saves you from smoking about 1.5 cigarettes in the future. So, really you are helping yourself quit!
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