Today is the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, during which smokers are encouraged to stop smoking for 24 hours. The day is held on the Thursday prior to Thanksgiving so that smokers “may use the date to make a plan to quit, or plan in advance and then quit smoking that day.” But that’s not how it’s necessarily perceived today.

Avoid the mistakes other smokers who are trying to quit will make today.

To quit smoking, first you need to want to quit smoking. It doesn’t matter if your friends, family and roommates want you to quit if you don’t want to. That has to come from the inside. If you don’t really want to quit, you won’t.

Keep in mind that this is not just the one day where smokers are supposed to quit smoking. That’s how today began. In 1971 in Randolph, Mass. a man named Arthur P. Mullaney asked smokers to stop smoking for a day and to donate the money they saved to a scholarship fund. What began as a noble event has slowly morphed into the misunderstood day it has become.

Today is a day to begin the rest of your life. Today is not the one day a year you quit smoking only to return to it tomorrow; today is the day you decide to quit smoking forever.

After all, smokers try to quit smoking cold turkey because they want to quit forever, but any can tell you it’s not that easy. Fewer than 10 percent of people can quit outright, and many other estimates put that rate even lower. (And a few of us at The Daily Illini and on the editorial board have a few failed attempts under our belt, so we know what it feels like.)

You don’t want to quit for a day, for a week, for a month or for a year. You don’t want to quit until you stop quitting. Quit forever.

The best way to quit is to make a plan. With the stress of school temporarily gone, Thanksgiving break might be a good time to quit. Or you might wait until your finals are done. You can even wait until you graduate. But pick a time and stick to it.

Use today to make an appointment with McKinley Health Center. Someone there can help you stop smoking, help make a plan to quit and advise you on whether to use nicotine-replacement therapy.

Talk to your friends and family about quitting. They probably want you to. If they’re smokers, they probably want to as well. Use them as your own personal support group.

Write down a list of pros and cons. Maybe you smoke because your friends do or because it’s social. The smell, the social stigma and the hard time breathing while climbing stairs or biking to class aren’t worth it. Is it worth paying $7 a day to slowly kill yourself?

Think about why you smoke and whether you really want to.

But make today last for longer than today. Make today the beginning chapter of your smoke-free life.