I started smoking when I was in college and didn’t know any better. However, ever since those days, I have had the habit of smoking a few cigarettes a week. Recently, a coworker of mine asked me why I smoke. When I tried to find the answer, I was at a loss.
Then I recalled that I started smoking during my internship. I had a lot of work pressure and smoking it away was just so convenient. A cigarette store or ‘khokha’ was exactly in front of the office. When I went back to college, the habit went back with me and I could find the khokha next to my college too. All this time, I had not seen it but now I started seeing it with a different perspective. I saw it as my escape.
I recalled all of this in a few seconds and then I answered, “Why did Eve eat the apple? Because she could and because god told her not to.”
TEMPTATION
I am sure that if god had not brought up the forbidden fruit, she would have ignored it, but since he raised it as a concern and put a warning label on it like tobacco companies, she was curious. It was also out of curiosity that I started smoking. Perhaps, curiosity is humanity’s original sin.
The same evening when I was leaving I could see many cigarette butts just outside my office building. I work in a corporate hub so I could find it along the entire road. It was kind of fascinating to me how people come here for a living, but end up shortening their lifespan.
Why do we need a certain level of sedation to function in environments like colleges and corporates? Can these environments be made any better so that people don’t slowly kill themselves to function there?
These are all the genuine questions I had after witnessing the scene. Maybe, I am being overly idealistic and our tendency to self-destruct will always be present. This is what the self-help industry doesn’t understand. Human beings are interested in improving themselves but perhaps they are also interested in self-destruction. If the urge to destroy oneself will always be present, then is it worth it to point fingers at society? In my opinion, yes.
I do believe that our offices and colleges shouldn’t put people in an environment where they are forced to sedate themselves. In a healthy society, a stressed person would have someone to talk to but in our society, they have easy access to tobacco vendors or khokhas. That is the reality we live in today.
About the author
Chirag Saxena is the author of ‘Reinventing the Wheel’ and a content marketer by profession. He takes great interest in philosophical questions.