The Force of Gravity
2 days after Christmas, I happily went for shopping around a mall in the center of the city. Crowds and Christmas decorations were visible, seemed like the presence of Christmas still lingered.
The crowds grew as the day got darker. And so as my day.
While on my few steps of venturing into a shop, a scream followed by a loud thud was heard. The crowds of the whole building rushed to the center of the floors to have a look to the source of the sound.
On the ground floor of the concourse, a man was lying there lifeless with his face facing up, with his bones in his legs being dis-positioned.
According to those who knew about the incident, it was suicide. The man, in his early 20's, jumped from the 9th floor of the building. Was the force of gravity that ended his life or he had used the force of gravity to end his life? The final decision lay in his hand.
The incident lingers in my mind till now. I could not sleep on that night with the vivid image of the man in my mind. Unable to believe that I had the probability of encountering this incident, and unable to erase off the image of the man. To make things worse, recently, I get to know that 4 suicide cases had happened in that building for the year of 2013. And one of the cases happened on the floor that I had my shopping. Despite all these cases, no structural changes can be seen in the building to prevent these tragedies from recurring.
A coward who barely survived
How fragile mankind is, both physically and mentally. We can be destroyed by force or by ourselves. And suicide is one way of doing it. Let us be frank to ourselves, there must be once or twice, or many more times when we think about ending our life when we were facing extreme difficulties. The fear of being doomed by the difficulties is far more greater than ending our life. It is something called desperation that acts as the causation of all these tragedies.
I will be frank here, previously I also had thoughts of ending myself. So absurdly coward? Yes, I have to admit. Yet, when it came to the time of taking action, my courage failed me when the thoughts of how I barely survived from incidents that nearly kill me emerged. Three incidents nearly took my life： sickness, man made incident and road incident. Thinking of how I stubbornly fought for my breath to survive the sickness and how barely enough of luck I had to escape my way to hell from the two incidents, and the images of my family shattered my courage of killing myself.
Alternatives
Desperation is really a strong feeling. Especially for some with rich emotions, it is a feeling which is hard to fight off. It is difficult, but not impossible. If desperation ever lingers and prompts the mind to end problems by ending one's life, ask yourself, "Does it really have to end like this? Is there really no way out at all or just the way out is too difficult?"
So, how difficult it is?
Financial difficulties
Right. We all have to face it. To survive needs money. Unless you are living like the hippies then money is not a problem at all.
If you are at the verge of bankruptcy, talk to your lenders to find out more solutions. Maybe setting up some easy payment plan, or ask them whether they can offer you employment and deduct your debts through your monthly salary. Remember, they only want their money back, not your life.
If you only have few pennies left for the whole month, search for any government bodies or non-profit organizations that offer shelter, food and clothing for you to survive for the month while searching for employment.
Talk to your family members, relatives or friends. They maybe able to offer helping hand to you. Just remember to repay them when you are capable. You can even talk to trained social helpers for their advice. But it will be better to talk to trained financial advisers that offer free of charge service for more professional advice on matters especially about financial problems and solutions.
It will be difficult at first to face the reality of losing money and also pride at the same time. But, mankind will not die losing those, they will die if they lose the meaning of life. You can lose your pride but not the dignity or respect to yourself. Respect yourself, live on.
Love
Live for love, die for love. Glorious. But somehow people misinterpret the underlying meaning. We will leave the job of interpreting the meaning of the sentence to the experts for now.
One thing we need to accept the fact is, the person who leaves us, though we had tried our very best to keep him (also refers to her), will not be back even if we kill ourselves for the person. We may think that our action will at least leave a deep impression as a way of torturing him for the rest of his life, well, what is the point of doing that since we will not be there to witness his sufferings? Besides, for a person that can leave that easily, it can be easily understood that he will never care whatever happened to us, no? What's more, as time passes, we will be long forgotten. So, what is the point of killing ourselves for the sake of being forgotten by an unworthy person? To us, he is important, but are we as equally important to him?
The stabbing pain of love of no return, we all know. If we had worked hard to keep but still unable to retain, it's not our fault, we can only blame the fate. If we have been hurt, let go of the knife that bleeds us, because we have been gripping on tightly in our palm.
Love, comes from lover, and it also comes from family, friends and the world. We can have all of them, only if we do not end our life for one unworthy person.
Respect love, live on.
Family
It is the source of support, it is also the source of breaking us. They are the people closest to us, people that we have been spending one quarter of our life with.
Each family has its own problems. Where people exist, where problems rise. Quarrels, arguments and fights are normal among family members. And since they are closest to us, their actions and words hurt us more than anyone else. Temper and emotions are very hard to be controlled when we are heated up. We may say some harsh and unintended words in a fight. We maybe told that we are unworthy, be told to die etc. At the verge of negative emotions, we maybe induced to really "go and die". But come to think of it, must it necessary to take their words when they do not intend it? Well, we don't "go and die" when people tell us to, that is rather irrational and dim-witted.
For those who are the only descendant of the family that have to undertake the obligations and responsibilities of the whole family, it will be like a snail bearing its shell on its body wherever it goes. Heavy, but unavoidable. Being trapped financially or mentally really tear us apart. The struggle to meet both end only will be comprehended by those in the same shoes. When the pressure exceeds the threshold, we may feel the urge of giving all up. It seems to be an easy way out but come to think of it, our family has been there for us for years and they too had been through all the roughs and ease, it will be very selfish of us to abandon them when they need us the part just because of some life problems which we think that can only be solved by killing ourselves.
Since that it is destined that we are the ones to undertake these obligations, why not face it with courage and take it up with pride? It is not something that anyone will be able to handle, and that adds more challenge and pride when we can prove to the world that we are able to do it. Respect your family, live on.
Whatever life problems that we encounter, suicide is not the easy way out. The road ahead may be difficult, but we will not be given problems which we cannot solve. The problems which may seem unsolvable at this point in time, may be only a trivial matter when we recall about it when we have wrinkles and silver hair. We will die one day, but it is better to die of old age with a meaningful life than to die as a coward who attempts to escape problems but in the end, failed so.
Respect life, live on.
I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run
towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath
your foot. -Nadia Comaneci
Hereby would like to share with you one of my favourite poem which I find it very inspirational and motivational:
If—By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Live on,
S.L.α
