Smoke, Ash, and the Art of Quitting

While the connection between smoke and ash is obvious; I was rather oblivious to a connection between smoke and Ash. The reason I am reminded of smoking after precisely three decades is Ash; Ash Barty!

“Don’t smoke too much,” I remember my sister warning me back in 1978. Though it was never a taboo in my family, I had not even started smoking then. I made up for the perceived delay and acted my age a year later. But I also acted my age at thirty, quitting well before my dad did!

Last week, Ashleigh Barty quit tennis at twenty-five. At a time when a physically battered Rafael Nadal is still not satisfied at thirty-five, Ash quit ten years younger! And she did it just like that, leaving behind millions of heartbroken fans with zillions of expectations.

My friends were heartbroken when I quit smoking, just like that. All those golden hours spent together with a cigarette balanced stylishly between our lips, imagining it made us superheroes, suddenly seemed to go up in smoke. My smoking since February 1992 has strictly been secondary. And I imagine tennis for Ash will now be strictly secondary.

I know how tough it was for me to quit at the peak of my addiction. I can imagine how tough it must have been for Ash to quit at the peak of her tennis. Being a chain smoker staying alone with no one to question, I had a free rein. Ash’s reign at the top extended to over hundred weeks, with not many to challenge her.

“I honestly wish to quit smoking; but I just can’t do it,” my student Siddharth confessed a couple of years back. “I can tell you how I quit, not how you can,” I had replied. In all my years as a compulsive smoker, there was at least a month every year when I practiced quitting, going the entire month without a smoke.

Ash too practiced quitting. She first quit tennis after winning the Wimbledon Juniors to join cricket. After a blazing stint in the Women’s Big Bash, she then quit cricket and joined back tennis. Now she has finally quit tennis after contemplating it even earlier, right after winning the French Open in 2019. She had continued then, only at her team’s insistence.

“Barty is telling the world that one’s goals can be different from those set by others; on the tennis court or elsewhere,” lauded an Article in Indian Express. I couldn’t agree more. Whether going against your team’s expectations, or resisting peer pressure, the resolve required is essentially the same.

“I am spent”, Ash said while quitting. I wasn’t spent, but I had spent. And spent a lot. Ash spoke about not having the physical drive to play the sport anymore. Had I continued smoking, I knew I would also continue to irreparably damage my physical condition. Ash says she has other dreams to chase. I probably had other things to get hooked to.

I am not aware of Ash’s other dreams, but I am sure she has huge faith in them. My alternative addiction has been entrepreneurship and I have enormous faith in it. In fact, I have come to realise that entrepreneurship gives me a much greater high than tobacco ever did!

Whether it’s substance or success, both are equally addictive and hard to quit. As psychologist Bob Taibbi says, quitting is an art. In his ‘Psychology Today’ Article, he says “The art of quitting is the art of combining rationality and reality with a leap of faith”.