Hypocrisy

As a young child, my mother was a smoker. So was my grandmother, and a few of my aunts and uncles. The smell never really bothered me, but I remembered the smoke would hurt my eyes if I tried to get close to her shortly after she had lit up. 

One day I asked her to stop. 

At first it was just because it sometimes hurt my eyes. As I grew older, I was taught of smoking’s more drastic, life-threatening effects, and I would ask my mom to quit on a more regular basis.

I worried about her health a lot. 

It took years. She never tried to do it cold turkey, but she quit. 

When I reached middle school, I smoked some, with friends whose parents still smoked. They could bum entire packs at a time. I hated the taste at first (as does everybody), but smoking in the woods with my friends soon became a small way of rebelling. I was not thinking about the future effects on my health. I was not remembering how hard my mother worked to quit smoking, either. 

I was being a hypocrite. 

Luckily, I was eventually sent to private school, which meant I did not spend as much time with my rough customer public school friends. Consequently, I kicked my bad habit fairly quick....