My Life...Your Life..
Many of my friends smoke, but I don't…yet that does not stop me from talking to my friends who smoke. Some people I know, say that smokers are bad people (how can smoking make people bad?) and that associating with them is stupid. I really don't understand that statement. I mean, my view on life is that one should do what he/she feels to do, and that having others tell you what to do is stupid (say to stop smoking). Most of my smoker friends know the dangers of smoking and I have told them about those dangers too, but if that doesn't stop them, then I have no right to not talk to them or judge them by their actions. [I am not resisting or trying to avoid my friend's personal matters by not dealing with them (as if I don't care about my friends), but I simply feel that I have no right to be the one telling them about what is right or wrong either.] Their actions (such as smoking) does not make them bad people, in fact I've been friends with some of them for the last 12 years now and they haven't influenced me. If they know all about smoking and still do it, then let them be the way they are, it is their own life not mine!
Lately, some laws have been passed raising the price of cigarettes, in hopes of stopping people from smoking. I know that the law was passed to stop underage smoking but other people who were affected were people over the age of 18! I talked to a few friends of mine (who smoke and are 18+ ) about this price increase, and they said that the only thing that the law had made them (my friends and other smokers) do was become more stubborn. They said that a little price increase would not help stop their addiction, and that no matter what, they'd still smoke. And why should it stop anything? It is the smokers life, not ours, let them live it the way he/she wants to, not the way we expect them to!
Now onto another case. Some people believe that athletes who beat their wives are bad athletes! But again, I don't get that! How can beating one's wife, make you a bad athlete? It might make you a bad person (morally) but how could that influence one's performance? I mean if someone looks up to the athlete (say a young child), then the person (athlete) may be considered bad, but to say that the athlete sucks (in performance) because he beat his wife is dumb! This case also applies to actors who are good actors or actresses who act well, but yet their personal life may hold many addictions. We as the audience need to judge those athletes and actors/actresses solely on their performance and not on their personal life! As in the case of Hugh Grant being judged on his fling with a prostitute…well what he did was morally wrong (considering he had a girlfriend), but did that affect his acting? Absolutely NOT! He still acted the same. He might have been immoral in his personal life, but that should be none of our business, since he still fulfilled his job of being an entertainer to the public!
In conclusion, we need to realize everyone has a personal life which needs to be kept private, or which needs to be handled individually! And it is none of our business to interfere with it, since everyone is entitled to their own personal privacy and is entitled to make their own decisions!
Note: I realize that with friends, that personal/private life thing is sometimes broken…only because that's what friendship is sometimes about (sharing your experiences, etc).