On Quitting Smoking, and on Too Much News

I was sorry to say goodbye to my Camel Lights.  It came to me in prayer during Advent that I needed to quit, and I thought I had better listen and obey, for my own good.

The hard parts were letting myself actually run out of cigarettes, and then a week later on my Saturday off at home.  That night and Sunday morning the craving was intense.  In church I was afraid I might faint.  And then after Mass the craving eased.

There is so much to keep you busy when you smoke:  all the "moments" when it is time to have a cigarette.  Quitting was like being out of a job, with so much time on my hands.

So Jules agrees, there is too much news!  I just do not want to hear about every disaster on the planet 24 hours a day.  And I do not feel obliged to care about all wars and disasters on the planet.  I say to myself, "No one is forcing you to read the news every day."  I guess that's true, though I have to handle several daily newspapers at work every morning.

I guess I could just tune out more than I do.  When you use newspaper archives as I do, you realize that the news doesn't change very much over the years.  Look at the microfilm from the 1970's and you will see that.