Smokers
like to point to the calming effects of smoking, relaxing after long day with a
drink and a drag - the satisfying puff after a lovely meal. But they also like
to draw attention to the charging effect of smoking, how when driving long
journey or fighting jet lag a smoke will help to generate some energy.
Until
a friend of mine, a frequent ex smoker, drew my attention to how untenable this
position is; I had not realised that my habit was not a useful habit with some
risky side effects that will never catch up with me, but an addiction.
Of course, with hindsight, it is ludicrous to think that an artificial
stimulant can also work as some kind of calming influence. It’s just an addiction.
The
first step in dealing with smoking addiction, for me, was to choose to fight
it. Of course I had some great incentives, a new family and loving wife, but at
the end of the day I had to choose to do it for myself. Part of that process of
choosing to fight the addiction meant deconstructing the arguments for smoking.
And the first one was, this drug does not solve anything, least of all the
effects of stress or tiredness.
Those
in our community that deny executive pay is excessive invoke ‘the global market.’ And
why not, what could have a nicer ring to it than the market itself, and global
one at that. After all, two-thirds of FTSE 100 companies are global operations,
for whom the UK is a small part of their operation. However, these same people also use the
global market as the same reason why low wages are very low and high wages are disproportionately
high.
How
can one overriding factor drive leaders of our largest organisations to have
salaries 40, 50, 60 even 100 times higher than the lowest in their
organisations, while simultaneously driving the gap between the two wider?
The
same reason 10
million people smoke in the UK – addiction.