My dad, smoking on TV. April 29, 1970. Les Archives de Radio-Canada, Sociétè Radio-Canada. 

I recently discovered a 1970 television clip of my dad on a Montreal political panel discussing the birth of the separatist Parti Québècois. Of course he’s smoking. My childhood memories are steeped in smoke. I see myself the year that was filmed, falling asleep, some time around midnight. My journalist father and my university prof mother are partying with friends, drinking, arguing, laughing, filling the ashtrays that had a permanent place on every table. Eventually, everyone stumbles into cars and, fortunately, no one (as far as I know) is killed.

By age fourteen I was smoking openly in my parents house. This was Montreal, the smoking capital of Canada. What would I be saving my young lungs for? So, I consider it a significant achievement that I haven’t had a cigarette in thirteen years.  And I don’t mind boasting that I actually quit a few years before Montreal became the last city in North America to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.

A few days ago, I sat down to reflect on how my life has changed since I quit.  I don’t smell of smoke. I don’t own an ashtray. I’m not spending money on cigarettes. My cardiovascular health is probably better than it was before, though I continue to avoid activities that would test this hypothesis. I have, however, developed another persistent and annoying habit in its place.

The habit of quitting. This may have something to do with my birthplace. Quebec, though now smoke free, is arguably still the world capital of thinking-of-quitting. It started in 1970; but we continue to vote for separatist parties at both the provincial (Parti Québècois) and federal level (Bloc Quebecois.) Nevertheless, across North America, the pendulum has clearly swung from a culture of excess, to a culture of renunciation. I am not immune to this trend.

Here is a partial list of things I’ve attempted to quit in the last decade:  Overeating.  Meat.  Dairy.  Factory farmed meat and dairy. Foods from afar. Gluten. Sugar. White Stuff. Carbohydrates. Cooked food. Junk food. Food with more than five ingredients. When I get tired of  my failure to control middle age spread, here are other things I’ve tried to renounce: Clutter. Sweatshop manufactured clothes. Paper.  Internet surfing. Chronic e-mail checking. Artifical light. Whimsical living. Goal setting. Sleeping in.  Walmart. Credit card spending.  Law & Order.  Spartacus, seasons 1 and 2. Asking my son how school went.  Pretending I care about World Federation Wrestling. Self sabotaging thoughts.  Living too much in the past.  Living too much in the future. All-or-Nothing thinking. Potato chips with more than five ingredients. Expectations.

I am driven, it seems, by a vision of myself, liberated at last from all cravings, toxins, guilt, and delusions. One day, ostensibly, I will run mostly on natural light and water, my mind pristine, clean of all indulgence. It’s a nice fantasy, but as I look over my life in the last decade, it doesn’t seem to be a very productive one. The list of things I’ve actually managed to quit is glaringly empty.

Here is the paragraph where I’m supposed to rail against neo-Puritanism. But having lived through years of excess, I don’t actually think it’s a bad thing to make conscious choices to curb unhealthy behavior. It does seem, however, that the more things I try to quit, the less effective I seem to be at it.

Alors, I renounce quitting! In moderation. For the next decade I will work on the one persistent problem that is an actual threat to my health and well being, overeating; and for variety, I’ll commit to more cardio.  But that’s it.  No more trawling The New York Times every week for things to quit. No more subscribing to the blogs of the people  currently trying to quit the thing I’m trying to quit. From this day forward I will either learn to accept most of my bad habits, or let them die on their own.

For inspiration in this challenge, I look to my parents. Still living, still smoking (though not so much) still arguing, still laughing, still Canadian. Fortunately, not as dangerous in cars.