Enjoy (video, 10:28). Inspired by the wise counsel of Hospice Nurse Julie, I plan to give up cigars at the end of the XY Crew Jamboree in Thailand. It’s time to stop seeing my money going up in smoke.

The great American humourist Mark Twain (1835-1910) wrote this:

“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

He had this to say about cigars:

“I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father’s lifetime, and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847, when I was a shade past 11; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.

I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that if I should break it I should feel as you, Sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you’ve got.”

On second thoughts, I may continue smoking cigars until I make a New Year’s resolution to refrain, about nine weeks from now.

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