Choose Life: The Implications of Suicide

There is no reason to go on with life.

We transition from innocence in youth to a world overrun by fear and tragedy.
We embrace the media’s attempt to exploit misery and death to numb the pain we feel for our own lives.

Throughout life, we are tossed cliche after cliche dictating how “life is hard”, “it helps us grow stronger”, “we have to suffer to find greater success” but why do we have to suffer to find happiness? After all, we have but one life and a short time period to live it. Even during that duration, we all run the risk of disease, disability, and with only a brief moment in time, the risk of instantaneous death. That is too much for any intelligent person to bear. We are cursed and blessed all at the moment of creation. We are born into the most intelligent species with intellect and emotion rolled into our developing brain.

Is this a curse because as we learn and grow, we question life, death, religion and faith in a higher power? Mortality is a wonderful and mysterious idea. It blesses us with the gift of life showering us with beauty, love, tranquility and peace but also gives the power to destroy and corrupts us with temptation, greed, gluttony and other sinful acts of emotional and physical aggression.

We find ourselves back at the center of a neutral debate.

Often when put on the brink of determining life or death, it is an action that prompts this internal debate. It can be losing a loved one, experiencing a catastrophic event, learning of an illness, or finding yourself at a low point in your life. It is then that simplicity rears its head and provides an easy way out. Whether there is an afterlife or not, it is the easy solution. For me…only.

The curse of intellect is that all of us bear the pain of the death of others while the soul less body lay at peace while we all morn. That doesn’t seem fair, so in a way, suicide is a very selfish solution.

That certainly adds another factor to this decision. Do I understand the reprecussions this will have on others who are a part of my life, or do I just not care given that I will be void of life and all the emotional pain attached to it.

In fairness to myself and others, have I looked at all the other possibilities?

Of course not, since life is an unpredictable act of chance. We are given certain pawns (money, social status, jobs, friends, family) that helps shape our decisions, but clearly an impossibility to deny the possibility of life improving as we move toward the future.

There we go, over-thinking a life altering decision. Just as I consciously talked about the human mind, I am verbally questioning the entire thought of suicide. In a jury, a decision must be unanimous, why shouldn’t be use that calculated logic toward a decision like this? That is an excellent thought, but the difference between a jury and a suicide is that I determine my future and the action I will take to achieve that end. Maybe I need to talk this through to people I trust so that all options are weighed. Clearly, anyone that cares about me will say “don’t kill yourself”. Hopefully, all will. That certainly cannot help but it does open the door of debate.

I have no intention of committing suicide, nor has the thought even breached my mind, but I like millions throughout the world suffer from depression, loneliness, sorrow, poverty, illness and feelings of isolation. The truth is, we need that in our lives. The complexity of the human mind is developed by the range of emotions that create a melting pot. It is this melting pot that creates the unconscious feelings we address every day. Whether it is our dreams, love at first site, deep sorrow for a loss, exhilaration from winning a race, the joy of seeing a loved one who was gone for a long time, or the peace you find in a sunset over the ocean blue, we need all of the collective energy of our thoughts to give us the pure euphoria that is life.

This letter is not reaching out to just those that have thought about the easy way out, but to those that may think about it in the future. In a way, this is not an attempt to talk you out of it, but to bring awareness to the completeness of such a decision. When you think about the gift of life, create a mental bag and put everything in it that is truly important to you. Include the good and bad because without bad, you wouldn’t know good. You will be surprised how heavy that bag is.

When you think there is such a burden on you that you cannot move forward, understand that the burden is everything that encompasses your life, darkness, light, loneliness, together, sadness and happiness.

Think twice….Choose Life