If I was born 50 years ago, I’m very sure I would be a smoker. The external influences to take up smoking were very strong – it was a mainstream part of society, tobacco companies spent a lot of money to make smoking look cool, and smoking came with a high degree of social acceptance.
Everything around you was designed to normalise smoking, so choosing not to smoke meant being an outsider.
I am very grateful that society’s preferences shifted enough in the last 50 years so that it’s now a challenging decision to start smoking. For those that were born into that world though, I deeply appreciate how smoking was considered normal, and that it may not have appeared a choice to do so at the time.
This makes me very mindful about things in our society which we may consider normal today, but really shouldn’t be. And if we appreciate we have a choice on these things, what are we choosing to do?