Why Leo Tolstoy is my favorite historical quitter...

[cpk]

Leo Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace" and lived over a hundred years

ago in Russia. He had notoriously bad habits... excessive

drinking, smoking, womanizing: he even lost his house because

he gambled it away in a card game.

 

Smoking was hard for him to give up because he loved it. Guess it

fueled him through 7 rewrites of W&P.

 

When he finally gave it up in the final sticky quit, he tried to

get all the peasants to throw their tobacco in a big bonfire.

They just laughed at him.

 

Tolstoy kept finding new things to give up because it seemed

to give him a rush. He gave up meat, the rights to War and Peace,

his land, hunting, fancy clothes, shaving, cutting his hair, organized religion,

and riding a bike. The bike riding thing was weird - he said it made

him feel too silly and euphoric.

 

He didn't give up doing his "dumb-bells" every morning, and

in his 70's was stronger than his sons. He didn't give up

playing the piano, swimming, and horseback riding. It's said he

spent the equivalent of 7 years of his life on a horse.

 

Some things never change. Tolstoy loved smoking, and

describes the romance of the addiction in his novels, in 

lavish detail. He gave it up because he said it caused

people to become non-productive and lazy.

 

Also, because he just loved to give up bad habits.