I think it's easy for people to argue that smoking is worse than meat because meat still has some nutritional value despite its negative effects, whereas smoking has no nutritional value. If you were starving, smoking wouldn't sustain you.
But the two things are hard to compare and which you should quit first is up to how you are feeling. I'm a firm believer that our bad habits are expressions or symptoms of emotional baggage and old programming so the way I improve my habits is by digging up all the old dirt and passively trying to quit all the things i decide are negative instead of forcing myself to stop.
I had such a hard time quitting sugar and caffeine and then I faced some fears and dug up and cleared out some baggage and I just stopped craving the stuff. I've gotten better with procrastination and negative thoughts (which to me are both worse than eating meat) but still working on them. I figure when I make enough progress with that I'll naturally go full vegetarian, where I eat meat once a day now.
Well said! Most poisonous substances esp. slow poisons have got some nutritional value but that doesn't mean we should consume those when starving. Sometimes starving is a better choice than consuming poison. BTW, no one is eating meat to rescue themselves from dying out of starvation! Eating meat is mostly a luxury choice.
I love this stand and it's perfectly right. But prior to that, we need to know what's right and what's wrong. Most people mistakenly making wrong choices thinking them to be the right one ...and this is because of our systematic brain-washing ...as you said "old programming".
Accept my congratulations for successfully quitting these two addictions! Sometimes we fear out of ignorance and lack of right knowledge. Once you have adequate knowledge, you feel more powerful.
You're certainly making progress in right direction. To some extent, what we eat also have some effect on our thoughts and vice-versa too. So we should be working on both ends, I feel.
My best wishes to you to see that day soon. With consistent progress you are making now, not only will you become a vegetarian very soon but a vegan too. More power to you!