COLUMN : not a nicotine addict (anymore)

i’ve been thinking about this a lot over the passed year. on what i base my decisions, and how that affects my way of life.
you know all those things you’ve been told – by others and by yourself – about who you are and what you can do ?

maybe you’ve been told
you’re not an athlete.
you’re not a morning person.
you’ve got a sweet tooth.
you’re not adventurous.
you’re no good at studying.
you have an introvert personality.
you’re scared of heights.
you’re a smoker.
you have no discipline.

whatever we’ve been told, i’ve begun to wonder : to what extent is it our personality that creates those labels, and how often is it instead the labels that creates our personality ?

if i’ve been told over and over again my whole life, that my body was that of a runner – how likely is it that i’ve now been running ? quite likely i reckon.

when i was 16 i started doing snus. a swedish tobacco product that looks like a tiny teabag that you put under your lip. it’s about twice as strong as a cigaret and hella addictive. and i always thought that i’m a snuser, that’s what i do. i’m addicted, and getting un-addicted is too hard for me. might work for others, but not gonna work for me.

two and a half years ago, when we were still in london, i moved my healthy habits into a higher gear. i started getting nerdy about my diet, reading all i could read, loving how my body reacted to all them nutrients. but it’s difficult to feel healthy when you’ve got a nicotine problem. so i decided, i need to quit. even if it breaks me i will quit.

i made plans, i made schedules, i read for hours, i found success stories. i wanted to do it right, with all the instruments and advice from other quitters i could find. david was hugely supportive and we almost made it into a fun experiment to try, not only something horrible to dread.

and i quit. me and david had a little final snus ceremony and that was that. i was prepared for the worse, but i was in for the loveliest surprise – quitting was way easier than i had ever imagined. i’m not just saying that to be motivational. it really was easy. i read this french study they made on thousands of smokers who decided to quit and if i remember it correctly, about 80% of the quitters said it was easier than they had thought.

so that got me thinking, how many other things do i believe to be impossible or difficult, that might not be at all ?
i thought i was a snuser. that it was my personality. it turned out i was only a person doing snus for a while. and i could just as well be a person who doesn’t do snus. and that’s what i am. i am a person who decides to not do nicotine.
and the funny thing is, i never think about snus anymore. i even forget that i used to do it. when something reminds me of my snusing days, it feels unreal that almost half of my life i was nurturing a nicotine addiction.
i don’t miss it ever. i don’t even think about it.

i’ve been keeping this in mind and experimenting more and more with the labels of my personality.
it turns out there are a lot of things i thought i was, that i’m just not. that i can change or at least modify.
and whenever i’m told that i can’t do or be something because of my personality, it amuses me a little bit and i get ready to challenge the preconception. so far it’s been a little bit overwhelming. finding out that the person i thought i was, was just a creation to make things easier. to quit before i even started. to not challenge myself. and sadly, to not reach my full potential.

now, instead of letting the things i’ve been told create my personality, i’m asking myself who i want to be, and i create a new label. i am a calm person. letting that label as much as possible create my new calm personality. because i choose it.

i’m just grateful to have, by pure chance, found out that i’m not a snuser. because that started an avalanche of labels and personality traits just disappearing.
of course, there are some things i can not change about myself. but it turns out, most things i can.
on the whole, the answer to my question – who am i ?
that’s my decision to make. and the jury is still out.

love // jenny

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