Cathedral Quit

One day I was walking along a lane and I came across 3 stonecutters working in a quarry. Each was busy cutting a block of stone. Interested to find out what they were working on, I asked the first stonecutter what he was doing. "I am cutting a stone!" Still no wiser I turned to the second stonecutter and asked him what he was doing. “I am cutting this block of stone to make sure that it’s square, and its dimensions are uniform, so that it will fit exactly in its place in a wall." A bit closer to finding out what the stonecutters were working on but still unclear, I turned to the third stonecutter. He seemed to be the happiest of the three and when asked what he was doing replied: “I am building a cathedral.”

When we first quit, we're like that first stonecutter. We're focused on each cigarette we're NOT smoking, or each craving we're not surrendering to. Behind each stone we see trouble.

Little by little, we begin to understand the rhythms of the quit, the ebb and flow - but still, we're focused on the details, not the big picture.

It takes time and patience to become like the third stonecutter, and realize that we're not just quitting smoking, but we're building a cathedral. We're not just letting go of a bad habit, we're taking our lives into our very hands, and creating something beautiful.