Irony of Life

“Life is a parody of paradoxical Irony/ Fate rules not without a touch of Tyranny/ While the rich belch on their goblets of honey/ the wretched etch on the tablets of agony”. The irony of life consists in that the poor live in a constant pursuit of money and cigarette smoking seems to make their miserable existence better. Poor people try to cope with difficulties they encounter in life constantly searching for new places of work, but the only way that helps is smoking. Linda Tirado states that smoking is a necessary medication that simplifies life of poor people. However, the primary issue is that smoking has its implication as the poor use cigarettes to survive, but, in fact, this bad habit merely kills them causing various health complications and diseases that lead to death.
Reality is cruel and unjust and the world often seems not to accept poor people considering that they are different. Most people live in bad conditions as their part-time jobs do not bring enough money to feed their families. Linda Tirado indicates that people develop bad habits as they need to fight stress and other hardships. It is evident that government does not care about its population and current problems rooted in unemployment and constant lack of money. The author concentrates on the problem of smoking, because many poor people prefer to smoke cheap cigarettes in an attempt to relax. In this case, smokers are mistaken claiming that smoking gives them a so-called moment of relaxation and peace. It is the prerogative of the rich to judge them, because they have another nature having never suffered from poverty. On the other hand, poor people are often involved in unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol and drugs abuse without thinking about possible consequences in the nearest future. Likely, they know how harmful cigarette smoking is, but their unceasing efforts to get money lead losing their moral and spiritual values not to mention health. Nobody pays attention that people become less moralistic in terms of their vices. Nevertheless, the worst is that they forget about own health. Thus, it is a huge mistake that smoking becomes a kind of self-medication for the poor, because it is a precise method of self-deception that just helps relax. In general, it is self-admonition, which dims human mind and sub-consciousness.
Desperation and the deadlock compel the poor to smoke despite they spend money on smoking and harm their health. Nowadays, a boundless amount of people smoke cigarettes even not realizing that this process has a negative influence on their health. It is a well-known fact that smoking destroys human body causing lung cancer that leads to death without any possibility to survive among other diseases. Also, smoking can bring much harm to other people, who do not smoke but breathe in the smoke affecting heart and blood pressure negatively. Perhaps, it would be better to build some particular places for smokers giving them a possibility to smoke in the defined areas. Additionally, many scientists and doctors state that cigarette smoking must be illegal as it destructs human body increasing the death rates and reducing the population. Though, it is difficult to estimate effectiveness of such propositions without practical evidence, but smoking is undoubtedly dangerous. On the other hand, Linda Tirado attempts to persuade the reader that poor people smoke, because this bad habit is “a reaction to the situation”.
Cigarette smoking does not have any positive health benefit and it harms both a person who smokes and a so-called passive smoker. Smoking kills millions of people every day, but they state it is their own choice. The worst is that they do not suspect about the consequences and numerous difficulties they can encounter in the nearest future. In this case, smoking can simply take away their precious life because of a bad, stupid habit, and life stops. In fact, tobacco contains poison, but those who sell it do not pay attention to human health as they make money raising their incomes. The government also derives profits and that is why, there is no reason to alter its priorities as for smoking. It does not take care of the future generations making a free choice to buy it everywhere instead of arranging some particular programs that can allow the addicts to quit smoking. Certainly, it is an addiction as many people cannot give up smoking. It sounds horrible, but smoking often becomes an integral part of life. For example, even Linda Tirado indicates saying, “They keep me awake, they keep me going”. In this case, a person is aware of the existent harm of smoking, but refuses to accept that cigarettes poison his lungs increasing the chances of getting cancer. Though, this fact is obvious for millions of poor people, they merely reject the idea of killing themselves consciously. According to the statistics, smokers die earlier than ordinary people who do not have bad habits. However, the poor continue seeking for positive feelings and emotions despite regular lack of money.
Health is the most important issue in life, but the lack of money and such bad habit as smoking destroy it. Linda Tirado pays much attention to the existent crisis of medical care and its negative influence on human health even if she is not against smoking. She compares the poor and rich making a statement that a good medication looks like a luxury as only rich men and women can take care of their health controlling their stable weaknesses and different diseases. Nowadays, the use of preventive methods is too expensive and the poor neither take the needed pills nor go in for sports. Hence, they resort to smoking even if it is expensive as well. Cigarettes destruct not just a general state of health, but they also destroy teeth. In this case, Tirado mentions that dentistry is a precise indicator of poverty, because an ordinary person cannot allow himself/ herself to visit a dentist regularly. This indicates that people without teeth do not live life like others as the absence of teeth makes limits their actions in public. Perhaps, the rich suppose that this issue is not significant as they have enough money to take care of their teeth timely. Visiting a dentist is an ordinary procedure that does not need many efforts. Moreover, rich people complete them regularly. Unfortunately, teeth become their obsession forever, but they begin to think about this problem when it is too late to alter something.
Cigarettes seem to be tasty as they bring the feelings of comfort and relaxation, but in essence, they contain killing chemicals. First of all, it is nicotine, which refers to the drugs as it stimulates human brain. A regular smoker needs it all the time, because when the level of nicotine in blood level, a person may have such symptoms as anxiety, constant headaches, hunger and inability to concentrate. However, a new cigarette can save a man relieving all these symptoms, but the situation becomes worse and worse. It means that regular dependent smokers must use cigarettes regularly in order to be in a fit physical and emotional condition, which allows preventing all those indicated symptoms. Additionally, carbon monoxide has a negative influence on pregnant women as well, because it decreases the amount of oxygen needed for the baby. As a result, it causes many complications during the period of pregnancy including bleeding. As for the poor, they do not have all the needed treatment and inspection being pregnant.
Pregnancy and smoking are incompatibles. Cigarettes have a highly addictive feature, which hampers the smokers to give up smoking. According to a number of researches and experiments, more than 90% of people try to refuse smoking within one year, but they begin to smoke again as it is rather addictive. The problem is that a young generation starts smoking at the age of eighteen or even earlier being hooked immediately and for a long period. People depend on smoking to the end of their life paying money for the past mistakes made in childhood. However, being teenagers, they do not think about their future children who can suffer from the nervous breakdown, asthma, heart diseases, or low blood pressure. Pregnant women should strongly stop smoking as tobacco smoke consists of some harmful chemicals that go to the mother’s bloodstream while smoking, and then, it passes into the baby’s blood. Moreover, smoking can lead to miscarriage, a low birth weight or stillbirth. Also, it is possible to assume that a child will be dependent on cigarette smoking. Many scientists state that it is true. They have already proved that a large percentage of children will smoke in the future like their parents. Undoubtedly, every mother has an opportunity to reduce the risk of the mentioned diseases if she gives up smoking before becoming pregnant. Thus, government must create some specialized centers for smoking mothers in order to show and explain why it is necessary to get rid of this bad habit. These centers must contain appropriate programs of a psychological character that can change female and male views according to the process of smoking and its impact on health.
In conclusion, cigarette smoking does not have any benefit for health. People suffer from poverty, but smoking only reinforces their instability and miserable existence. The most essential thing is to understand that the poor make their current situation worse as smoking requires much money to treat health. Cigarettes contain poisonous chemicals that kill people either causing horrible diseases that are impossible to cure or lead to death. Moreover, pregnant women should not smoke as it harms both their and future babies’ health as well. They must realize that their children will have different symptoms and illnesses. It is evident that smoking does not help poor people survive as it is not that right option they need in order to change the lack of money and unemployment. Smoking does not alter a stressful situation and the poor just deceive themselves stating that smoking is a necessary medication that assists them to relax. Thus, poor people must not smoke as it reduces their chances to survive even being very poor.