A Word on Wednesday: Counting

This week, I reached one year smoke free! 

At the time of this writing, I have been a quitter for:

366 days,

06 hours,

36 minutes,

and 

25.8 seconds. 

But who's counting? 

Actually, the phone ap "Just Quit" counted for me, and the clock is still running. 

It also tallied

$2,930.21 not spent on cigarettes, 

7,325 cigarettes not smoked,
and

109,883.35 mg tar not inhaled.

Someday, the precision of all this counting will lose significant meaning. 

In time, I will stop thinking about how many days since I last pulled a drag. 

Someday, I will only remember that I quit around the time I turned 40, which was more than twenty eight years after I took my first puff as a preteen. 

As a hard-earned nonsmoker, I count myself lucky to have had the chance to quit. 

A Word on Wednesday: Stronger

Stronger is not second place in a race of three -- strong, stronger, strongest. Rather, it is a record of growth. Stronger is a superlative from the root word strong and can refer to physical and mental vigor.
 
When a comparative adjective is used, it requires one to consider, than what? One must supply the other side of the comparison. Consider the Nietzsche's observation, "what  doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Does this, now common, aphorism mean stronger than dead or stronger than you were before you encountered the thing that almost killed you?

As a ranking adjective, stronger tempts one compete to become the strongest. However, the record of the strongest will be surpassed, just as best, fastest, and tallest. Stronger, then, is only for today. Stronger than yesterday, perhaps. Stronger than another, sometimes.

Stronger than thought possible is the attraction of trying to become so.