When did you ever ask to be born?
Your lifetime is a gift. How can you then decide to end a Life that you has
been ‘given’ to you?
I saw a
note from a young reader this morning saying she read my post of two days ago –
“Are you ‘sad sad’ or are you ‘happy sad’?”
She confessed that she was just out of ICU after attempting suicide for a
second time. She felt no one “really shared her sadness or was willing to
understand why she was depressed”. Her note indicated that she was learning to
cope with her reality: that she was perhaps having to deal
with her Life, herself!
Indeed.
Each of us is messed up in one way or the other. And we all have to deal with
our quota of problems – some call it “s*%t” – by ourselves. Often times, Life may
well be lonely. But sorry, I am not one who will ever support suicide as an
idea – whatever may be the circumstances that drive anyone to that point.
Here’s
what we need to understand. This lifetime of ours is a gift. None of us asked
to be born. Life has been given, gifted, to us. For heaven’s sake, consider the
miracle here. Isn’t it a miracle that you have been created as the human who
gets the H1N1 (swine) flu and not as the swine that gives the flu? Even the
swine did not ask to be born. Life has been given, gifted, to the swine as well.
For all that the creator – if there is indeed one – cares, you may well have
been created as a swine! So, know that, if you have been created as a human
being, there must be a reason for it. And that reason is certainly not to
feel depressed and to take your own Life!
A
principal reason for depression is that your Life is not going the way you want
it to. Simple. This reason may manifest itself in myriad ways but the basic
concept is of not getting what you want. But hey, hold on a sec, will you? When
did Life promise you anything? When was any guarantee given that your Life is
going to play out this way or that way? Life does not promise anything. There
are no guarantees in Life. Every product you buy comes with a user’s manual and
a warranty. You – and I – are the only products, us humans, who come without
any user manual to guide us or any guarantee that can assure us of a Life that
we want. What this essentially means is that the best way to live Life is take
it as it comes, to live with what is and to have no expectations from Life. The
moment you expect Life to be this way or that way, and when it doesn’t go your
way, you feel depressed. So, who is causing your depression,
you – or Life? Besides, how intelligent is it to feel depressed over something
that was never in your control?
Also,
let’s not expect people to understand us either. It’s better to assume that no
one will. And then when you find someone who understands you, well, won’t that relationship
be worth celebrating? Your sadness is your own. Your
happiness is your own. Don’t agonize over friends who don’t want to share
either with you – the brutal reality is that such people were never your
friends! You have made the mistake of calling mere acquaintances
your friends, and you brood over their behavior? How intelligent is that? One
of the best features that Facebook offers is when you add a friend, it asks you
to categorize that relationship – is this a ‘close friend’, ‘an acquaintance’
or should this person be added to ‘another list’? I do this diligently for all
my friends – even offline, off Facebook. And I would recommend you do it to.
Let me tell you, it works!
Life has
to be faced no matter what the circumstances. My wife and I have been enduring
a bankruptcy for years now. For many spells over the last 8 years we have gone
penniless. I have been called a cheat by my own mother and have been ‘disowned’
by my own family. As I write this, Vaani and I are not sure where our material Life
is going – honestly there is so much debt to be repaid and no effort to reboot
the business has kicked in place, the way we want it to. Yet, we are sure, that
this Life must be lived, till it naturally ends, it is own inscrutable way,
just as it all began! This is our story. But look around you – in your
family, in your circle of influence, among your neighbors and colleagues –
everyone’s got a personal story of pain, grief, guilt, sorrow and of facing
Life stoically. If they can look their Life in the eye and live it, all of us
too can!
I not
going to tell this young reader – or anyone – that everything shall pass, that
things will get better, that there will be dawn at the end of every dark night.
I believe anyone attempting to take one’s Life is smart enough to know that all
this is both true and fluff at the same time. Fluff because Life takes time to
change. And it is people’s intrinsic impatience with Life, and a lack of
understanding of what Life is, that drives them to suicide. But from experience
I can tell this for sure: it is in enduring Life patiently that you evolve, you
grow and you come to a point where you believe, like we do, that if you have
been created you will be cared for, provided for, looked after – and loved! That you may not always get what you want, but you will
always, always, be given what you need!
AVIS thanks for sharing this beautiful blog on her, well said!
ReplyDeleteOh my dear Dr.RS see how you have touched so many in your life! This is a testament of unconditional love that you have showered on many of us. You have been a special mother indeed for many! Three decades of my association with Dr. & Drs Sourirajan has seen their genuine compassion and benevolence.
I along with my family miss her dearly..Gnana, Sugar land Texas