Be Grateful That You Have This Hobby

Cigar smoking is a great hobby, but I think most of us, including me most of the times, are not grateful enough that we are in the position to have this hobby. I was thinking this while I was on vacation. On a tropical location, I lit a cigar on a small island where I just arrived with a longboat that I chartered for my wife and children. While the family was snorkelling and enjoying the warm and clear waters of the Andaman sea, I decided to light up a cigar while enjoying some fresh coconut. I could feel peace come over me, I could feel all the sorrows and the stress from work and business fade away. When my wife returned from swimming, she said something simple, “we could have it worse” with a sense of understatement and yes, we could. And for that, we should be grateful.

Affording the hobby

Smoking cigars is not a cheap hobby, and it’s not an encouraged hobby by society with all the frowning upon tobacco. For the general public, cigars are just bigger cigarettes and thus automatically bad. I wish there was a way to educate all these people, starting with politicians that write anti-tobacco legislation, but I have no idea how. Yet, all of us found our way to cigars and can afford to buy and smoke cigars. The costs depend heavily on where you live of course. Smoking cigars in California is much more expensive than smoking cigars in Florida or Pennsylvania. Smoking cigars in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand or Australia is way more expensive than smoking cigars in California or New York. Yet, there are cigar smokers all over the world, and it’s not just rich people that smoke cigars in the expensive countries. Regular joes smoke cigars too, maybe not that many as the rich ones, but still. And just the fact that we can pay for our hobby is already a reason to be grateful. You could have been born in a poor family in a country with little opportunity. Or living in Brunei, the only country in the world where tobacco is completely illegal. Be grateful you are not and that you are allowed to smoke cigars and can afford to smoke cigars.

Meeting new people

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I met a lot of new people through cigars. People that became friends. People that are now very important to me. Every time you walk into a cigar lounge, you meet people. I had people, fellow cigar smokers, come up to me and chat while I was on vacation just because they saw me smoke a cigar. Some of these people stay around in your life, others are just passing by, but you get to have a human connection with another person even for a little while just because of a shared passion. Smoking cigars gave me so many opportunities and brought me places where I would never have been otherwise. It brought me knowledge too. Something to be grateful for, isn’t it?

Also, cigar smokers aren’t cut from the same fabric. One moment you’re talking to a truck driver, making long and lonely hours on the road through mainland USA or driving all over Europe, and the next moment you’re talking to a big time businessman worth several millions. It opens your mind up, you get to talk to people from all walks of life, which broadens your horizon. I am grateful for that, because it makes me a better person, with more knowledge, with a wider view.

So yes, be grateful that you have this hobby. Plus, smoking cigars makes you look cool and sophisticated, now I can be grateful for that because on the looks part I can use all the help I can get 😉

Inspector X