Quit smoking

I smacked myself, hard. Then I opened up a browser window and Googled myself. Sure enough, there they were, in my 2005 NaNoWriMo blog. (Don't ask me why I keep doing that to myself.) I'd laid everything out with clear intent and specificity, hadn't I? I'd even figured out all the steps necessary to get there. No getting out of this - I'd been careful not to build in loopholes. Damn the legal training...

Anyway, the weight loss was easy, once I stuck that foot out there in front of me and started to move. A few months later - December 2006 - I was thirty pounds lighter. I reviewed the goals I'd set and checked each one off the list with pride. I got to the end of the list...

Quit smoking.

Oh, no I hadn't... yep. I looked at the list again. I had. Why? I whined (in my head). I was doing so well; now, a year later, I didn't even want to quit smoking. But suddenly, I wanted very much to do everything I'd vowed to do at the end of 2005. I'd said I would, I'd said it in public, and by G-d, I would. I took a deep breath. I set my quit date to...December 29. That'd get me through the holiday stress, I reasoned. And I won't have to think about it for another three weeks. Yeah, there was that. Unfortunately, I ran across this post on commitment. It opened with the following quotations: