Daily Prompt is playing Intervention now! Just kidding. Probably. Here’s what they want to know in this one:
You need to make a major change in your life. Do you make it all at once, cold turkey style, or incrementally?
This is easy. When it comes to things, do it cold turkey. When it comes to people who are harming you, do it fast, but a little slower than cold turkey in case they get the hint and try to change. When it comes to someone you care about, or other relationships that you know in advance are changing or going to change, you have to do it incrementally.
For example: I used to do… oh, let’s call them ‘recreational substances’. One day, I thought it was time to stop, so I did. Just like that. I used to smoke. One day about 12 years ago, I thought it was time to stop, so I did. Just like that. I used to drink a lot. One day, I decided it was time to stop, so I did. Just like that. I have started drinking again, but nowhere NEAR the levels I was at. Most people, including my own daughter (who is over 21), can drink me under the table. I am a lightweight, and I am cool with that. It’s because all those are things, and they are harmful and unimportant, and they have no feelings. So, fuck them.
Second example: Before I was married for 17 years (this Feb 20), I may have dated a few people. The number of women I dated longer than a year before I met Mrs. Hotspur was exactly zero. Including Mrs. Hotspur herself, who I dated for only 3 months before getting all hitched and matrimonial. On the one hand, I knew all those other women were wrong for me. But on the other hand, I knew she was right, so I gave up being single cold turkey too!
Third example: Okay, here might be where you’d slowly end a friendship that had run its course, or gradually lose touch with someone who moved away, or whatever. In my case, it was letting my daughter Daria go. She got married and moved out, and I think of her as my daughter, sure – and so does my wife, of course – but now, slowly but surely, we’re thinking of her as a grown-ass woman. Someone who makes her own mistakes, and then works them out with her husband. She’ll need us less and less as time goes on, until one day she’ll need us to watch her kids so she and her husband Justin Long can scoot to Vegas or something. Sigh. I miss her.
Edward Hotspur
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I like when you have those moments that you realize ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’.
Even moments where you realize “I want to take a break from this for a while.”
I did the same thing with eating….I finally realized it was time to get healthy and walk away from all the processed crap – one of the best decisions I made.
I did that one too!
It’s a rewarding feeling….and one I choose to never forget.
Me either. I’ll never forget the… um…
….what were we talking about?
I feel there are several friendships in my life that have run there course, but its so freaking hard to just say peace out. Trust me I’ve tried. Maybe I’ll try this again one day at a time.
Those are ones that you do slowly, to make sure. But people change, and circumstances change… not always negatively, either.
I love the second part. I love the third part. But the first part only works if you have will power, a spine, character, guts, strength, and lots of other things I don’t have.
You have them.
oh stop it
Cold turkey, huh? You are lucky to have that with all things. I can practice the cold turkey, with most things, minus the one biggy, and you know what that is… I also like cold turkey salad sandwiches the day after Thanksgiving.
(I need to not be lazy anymore and do a prompt or two.. work has been piling up though.. hum…) ~J
Yes, for me too. I haven’t done a completely original thing in a while.
I can go cold turkey, as you know I quit smoking cold turkey a little over a year ago. But I can let go gradually too. I only have 1 friend here in Edmonton, a couple of acquaintances, but only 1 friend. But now she’s gone too. She met a man & stopped being available to do anything at all. I kept trying to keep the friendship together but she was never there anymore, so I stopped calling too & now we haven’t talked in months. So I guess I don’t have that friendship anymore either.
Sorry, Benz. But good that you quit smoking.
Of course I have blogging buddies, but you can’t necessarily call them up & go out for coffee to get away from hubby. I have had an idea for a different type of non-fiction book I might write, so maybe people could understand why my life is the way it is.
Hmmm, true, but one or more of us is always available for chatting.
You’re right! I forget sometimes, especially when hubby is complaining about me spending too much of my time on the computer.
ha ha
Thanks for the pingback! I really like your writing!
Thank you for saying so!
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