Every now and again I read something where someone sounds suicidal or an article about suicide or heck in the Marines we have annual suicide awareness training.
As I understand it; most people at some point in their lives have some kind of suicidal thoughts. I guess I had more of a tendency towards homicidal thoughts, not that I think that is better or anything. But I can understand how a person might want to end their life even if I don’t agree with it and could never condone it except under the rarest of circumstances.
I am ok with for example a person with a painful and terminal cancer, having made peace with his or her life, squared away worldly affairs and all that, ending their life. That’s fine.
What I have a hard time dealing with, is when a person with all of their compound reasons decides to “take the easy way out.”
I could say that’s cheating. And yeah, it is usually pretty unfair to those around you too unless you happen to be in the situation above.
The ripple effect of your actions can be really harmful to others for one. Who is going to clean up your mess? What about the person who discovers your corpse? The people who have to sort through your things who probably loved you… It can go on and on.
And what about the potential lost? Yes, the suicidal person might be suffering at the moment and feel overwhelmed and it might feel like the world is shoveling dirt on your head but that is how we grow and become stronger. By overcoming the suffering you incur over and over again you can become wiser and more powerful. So as the dirt gets shoveled on your head just shake it off, tamp it down under your feet, and guess what, you’re a few centimeters taller now.
I know to someone who is considering suicide that sounds a lot easier said than done.
But I firmly believe that everyone can be useful and that suicide robs the individual and those around that individual from the possibility of growth. The posibility for knowing the joy of appreciation for thinge even as they are.
To get into what some might think is hocus pocus stuff, what about what happens after you die? Most people will tell you they just don’t know.
Some research has said that the consciousness goes on after the brain is dead. So if that is true, and you kill yourself in an angry agitated state, will your consciousness go on in an angry agitated state? Woah. Maybe that is what hell is eh? And if you are an old school Buddhist who accepts the possibility of rebirth, heck the human realm is where it is at, the place we are most likely to take the Buddha’s path to enlightenment.
Any way, if you’re thinking about offing yourself, please take a break from those thoughts and call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK it is a suicide prevention network of 132 crisis centers in the United States, that provides a 24-hour, toll-free hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. After dialing 1-800-273-TALK, the caller is routed to their nearest crisis center to receive immediate counseling and local mental health referrals. The Lifeline supports people who call for themselves or someone they care about.
