Its a personal choice of course but my late Father used to smoke 2 packs of 20s everyday and done so for decades. One day after dinner, all of sudden, we realized he did not light up his usual after meal ciggy. And this went on for days. Its like he just stopped suddenly and from that day on, he has never smoke a single stick. It was only later we found out on that day he found out one of his friends died of lung cancer at a young age, it just shocked him to stop almost immediately. He don’t know how, but he just stopped.
Sharing not to scare or shock anyone, because I guess we heard all about these things, but there are reasons that might motivate or shock someone to really stop smoking.
I tried to stop a couple of times, before slipping back into the habit, but when I first met my partner-to-be (a non-smoker) and realised that we would end up together, I found the resolve to quit for her sake. That was over 30 yrs ago.
Point being, when the time is right and the true motivation is there, it becomes quite easy to stop. After the first week or two, the desire for a cigarette after a meal, or with a drink, began to fade away until it eventually disappeared.
So, no matter what we tell ourselves, or how guilty others may make us feel, it’s a personal decision that we reach only when we get there, as we win that mental battle with ourselves.
That’s been my personal experience anyway. It’s actually not as hard as we sometimes build it up to be, but we just need to know why we are making that decision, to remove any doubt or confusion regarding this.
We had coffee with a girlfriend of the missus and her partner, who’s a golf guy.
At some point he tells a story about one of his golf buddies, who’s a South African Jew who ran away from SA, smuggling some millions in gold bullion, at the fall of apartheid.
I didn’t say anything at the time, I was too shocked and didn’t want to cause a scene, but I’ve been feeling dirty ever since.
take both victories for what they are, steps in the right direction.
maybe its too little too late for the cricket team, but at least they showed a bit of backbone on a very tricky wicket.
as for the footy, ignore where we have been for the last few months, sometimes a win like that is a win like that… grab the points and run, dont even bother with a match review, look forwards, type of thing. Wirtz looking a bit tasty too now, him and Ekitike…green shoots…
This bloke had profited from one of the most corrupt and inhumane regimes of all time and had stolen money which could have helped in the reconstruction. Now his crime is a golf club anecdote.
I feel bad because I didn’t speak up.
That’s always the argument for corruption and it’s just not good enough.
Plenty of people stayed on in SA and helped build the new country, he wasn’t forced to run away and found one of Australia’s major sports retailers with his blood money.
You’ve got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair’s alright
Hey babe, let’s go out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they’re playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say I’m wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on…
Do you know this golf buddy and can you verify the accuracy of the story?
I only ask as I can think of only 1 sports retailer in Australia that was founded by 2 South Africans, but dates for that don’t match up with the end of apartheid. It also started out as only 1 small store and took a long time to grow into a national retailer.
Maybe I’m naive, but you’d hope that Jewish people, given their history, would baulk at profiting from a system that priveleged certain races over others, but in SA, and now in Israel, it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
I know the one guy, and he’s not inventive enough to have made up the story.
The chain may have preexisted the smuggling, but it’s the same guy.
I’m going to stop now, for fear of legals, but I’ll try to find out more.
I’ve become a bit more detached from football (and possibly most other things) of late. I don’t know if it a subconscious self preservation reflex or becoming one (some or all) part of cynical, old or grumpy… I still get annoyed with us not playing well or loosing or even drawing but it does not leak as much to into other aspects of my life as it once did.
This season is just weird. Accepted it in mid-October that qualification for CL was probably about as much as we can expect and that next season we will likely see a stronger campaign - which was galling as I expected us to kick on from last season rather than the drunken staggering that has infolded…
I’m fine with top 4 this season, provided we address some of the issues we currently see, and we get ourselves in a position to kick on next season. The amount of change we’re having to absorb this season was always more likely to bite more than gel from Day 1.