Smoking makes me sad: thoughts

My parents raised me believing smoking was a kind of sin. Well really it was part of a more general belief that deliberately befouling the body (ie God's likeness) was sinful.

I feel like there's enough judgement in the world, and I really don't want to add to it with another sermon about smoking being selfish and sinful and demanding people quit and putting smokers down and on and on and on. Especially since I see the act of smoking cigarettes as a decision that an autonomous individual made. And I respect others' autonomy, because I'd like more of my own.

So I've put my thoughts here - because I don't want to tell my friend that the fact that she needs to smoke makes me sad.

Everyone today knows that there is resounding evidence indicative of a direct correlation between smoking and decreased life expectancy. For my parents - for quite a few people - this is why smoking is bad: Why would you knowingly do something to shorten your life? They just don't understand it.

But this is not something I question, because it is each individuals' life, and their decision to make.

Everyone who smokes now, does it - not because it's fashionable, as it was until my grandparents' generation; but to self-harm. It might not be conscious self-harm, but everyone knows smoking is physically unhealthy, so they are choosing to harm themselves. And what makes me sad is that there are people who are hurting - people I love who are hurting - enough to seek the relief of it.

A boy I was close to for a while last year smoked at least a pack a day, and they used to make me sit upwind so the smoke wouldn't catch me (self-harm is never r/Romantic btw). And it made me so sad to think of the pain they were in: That this boy I loved hurt enough inside for it to manifest in a form of self-harm so routine as smoking.

And what's bad about it for me is that I couldn't tell the boy, and I can't tell my friend, and I can't tell the people I love who smoke that it makes me sad. I can't tell them, because I can't bear the idea of them feeling guilty for the way they feel, just because it makes me sad that their pain demands to manifest in such a way.

So to smokers; to self-harmers; to everyone: Be gentle. Be kind. I love you.