If you have grown up in the last 30 years, you have been taught that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. We've learned how it is directly tied in to lung cancer and emphysema. We've also learned some other common side effects. Bad breath, smelly clothes, and the fact that now public smoking is banned all over the place.

So why do young teens and adults continue to pick up the habit and keep smoking? Well, for one, it is still one of the naughty things that a kid can sneak behind their parents backs. And kids can sometimes find a group of fellow smokers at their school or part-time jobs and the cigarette provides a false bond between these people.

But what about the cost of smoking? In New York, for example, a pack of cigarettes will set you back around $ 7. Smoke a pack a day and that adds up to $ 200 a month. I could pay my utility bill with that kind of money. Add that up over the course of a year and you would have about $ 2400. Not a bad little nest egg every year.

And the poor health. Smokers face greater health costs as they grow older. From nagging coughs and higher rates of respiratory infections to the dreaded cancers. This alone should be enough to make people want to quit. But often, they just keep right on smoking. The mental habit of it is even more powerful than the physical addiction. But wouldn't the promise of death outweigh even the mental addiction?

To truly quit, you would have to change the way that you see cigarettes. See them as a source of cancer and poverty. That's what they really are. See them as something that alienates you from non-smokers. Or as something that forces you to go outside and into the cold winter air just to get a quick fix. See them as the kind of legal drug that they are.

Smoking will cost you many times more what the benefits are. And you never know just how much of a cost it could ultimately be. At $ 7 a pack and a pack a day, 10 years of smoking would cost you around $ 25,000. That's a lot of money to spend just to slowly kill yourself.

Visit http://www.successfulfather.com and learn more about making changes to your life. Include smoking as one of the things you would like to change. Sign up for the FREE newsletter and bookmark the site so you can come back tomorrow. Take charge of your life and your health.

Bryan Appleton is an author of self-help motivational literature as well as an entrepreneur and investor. He is a single father and has made it one of his life's goals to try and help other people live the lives they are dreaming of. You can find his website at http://successfulfather.com

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