So, litter is pretty much everywhere here, and sometimes I find it interesting. In fact, I walked around our playground and took a few pictures of cigarette packages that were left on the ground (oh, and one that I saw in a trash can). I was used to seeing “Surgeon General Warning…blah blah blah” in a paragraph of pretty small print on cigarette packs in America, so the warnings printed on cigarette packs here struck me as bold.
Here are a few I saw in my trip around our playground:
Smoking damages your lungs.
Smoking causes strokes and disability
Smoking causes heart attacks
Smoking can kill a baby in his mothers womb.
Smoking seriously damages you and those who are around you.
Stop smoking. Live for your loved ones. Call green against smoking: 800 554088 – Highest Health Institute
Smoking kills
I have seen others, just not today.
Obviously, no matter how bold the warning (take the last one for instance: “Smoke Kills”), lots of people smoke. In fact, Italians have a vaccination for babies to help protect them from pneumonia because their lungs have been compromised by the smoking of their mothers and those around them.
So why do people keep smoking?
The truth is that many people don’t heed warnings–no matter how bold–until they’ve suffered from the consequences of their choices (and even then, only sometimes do they change)…and by that point, it’s often too late. All they are left with are regrets.
I usually know better, too, when I make bad choices. In fact, I’ve read through the perfect book with all of the best warnings many times (the Bible). Still, I have many regrets.
Why is that? Because I don’t actually heed the warnings. I kind of like my way better (until the consequences come, that is).
2 thoughts (notice how I avoided the words “advice” or “warnings,” since I don’t follow those things anyway…) for me and others like me:
- Follow the Good Shepherd and heed His good warnings–regardless of whether you want to or not (Psalm 18:30 “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”). Stop ignoring the warnings!
- When you fail, and the subsequent regrets seem to swallow your joy and your desire to continue, look up (Hebrews 12:1-2 “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”) Don’t give up.
smb