Well, 2008 is finally here and I don't feel any younger or healthier. After improving my diet, exercising more, sleeping more...I've decided my final step is to take up smoking. That's right, it is time to light up and live longer. If I am not mistaken, one of the best things on every fitness guru's list of things you can do to live a longer and healthier life is to quit smoking. Unfortunately, I don't smoke yet.

It is not that I didn't try to pick up the habit. I came from a home where both parents smoked, as did all their friends and co-workers, and every kid over 16 who still wanted to look cool but did not know how to score some pot. So, as a 10 year old I would light up every now and then and occasionally try to inhale. Of course, my young lungs did not know at the time it was possible to breath in smoke from chemically charged burning leaves so, like presidents and politicians, I had to pretend to inhale. Later, when I was in high school, I even tried Swisher Sweet cigars, but found they tasted much better when not lit. On top of all this, when faced with a wall of vending machines hawking sodas, sweets and cigarettes, I always gave into my sweet tooth. Plus, a coke or candy bar was a quarter, while a pack of Camels were fifty cents.

When you're a kid, you don't know any better. You think you will never get old, let alone make it to 40, so you don't worry about your health. But now that I am approaching the big five-oh, I am starting to realize that mortality may be just around the corner and I have to act fast. So, I decided that if I am going to quit smoking like all the experts recommend, I had better start smoking first. I am guessing a year of smoking a pack a day should do the trick. That may sound like a lot, and it is, but if some things are better done in moderation, I think I would rather leave that for drinking. Which reminds me, I need another gin and tonic!

TO YOUR HEALTH! (clink)

Learn more about this author, Mark Hart.
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