Quitting smoking is a kind of realization that my life is coming full circle now that I'm 62 . . . a sort of return to the days of my youth before I smoked, no longer driven by the need to get things done (for family) or tied to externalities like money, "success," work schedules, to-do lists, or even calendars. The changing of the seasons will be good enough for me now.
For the last "productive" 40 years, I've used many things to bind my drive and measure my time, such as smoke breaks throughout the day, drinks at the end of the workday to unwind, more drinking and smoking on weekends to clearly separate "free time" from "work time." I'm not concerned about retiring (and probably won't retire), but I don't need those things anymore: life is good, I'm still here, time to get prepared and show some gratitude for all I have and for getting this far.
So as a visual, I choose Siddhartha meditating by a stream since I was quite influenced by that novel in my early teens. I don't know what it will all look like, but I will know this: "I can think, I can wait, I can fast."
