In my personal opinion, suicide is never something that is or can be justified. Now I do not judge anyone for it, nor condemn them either, but it is not something I can ever say is justified. I can understand why someone feels that why, the thoughts and life that leads up to it, but I do not condone suicide. I have talked to a suprising number of people who have attempted or contemplated suicide, and because of that I know a small portion of why it is different people have gotten to that point. While it is not a point I have ever reached myself, I do understand how people can get there, how the desire to escape their problems is so strong, the pain so great, that they might want to use any means possible to escape. I understand that, but I also do not feel that that justifies forfeiting their life.
One perspective that I hold is that no matter how bad your life is, no matter how hard things are or have been, someone else has had it worse. I do not in any way shape or form belittle the individual struggles we all have, and I know that I have not experienced a whole lot myself. I just simply am saying that there are others out there who have overcome worse, which proves to me that it is possible to overcome any problem or life experience. No matter what has happened, as humans we can overcome, perservere, survive. That is why I do not think we should ever give up hope.
I also know that my faith plays a large part in how I feel about this topic as well. Interestingly enough though, it is not because I am focused on the idea that if you committ suicide you cannot go to heaven or whatever. I have not studied the topic enough to have a say in that, and I am not the one to make that judgement anyways. The part that my faith plays is that in my mind, there is always hope. I have hit my own personal rock bottom, and survived it. What pulled me through was my faith. I have heard of even tougher stories and experiences, and God has pulled these people through it as well. I know that despite the depth of the circumstances and pain, my God can heal, restore, and give new life to anybody.
In my eyes, there is always another option. No matter what, we should never give up on life. We have so much to live for. Regardless the problems we face, things we must deal with, we have so much more to live for. I realize how hard it can be to see that, in the face of our problems, but that is no excuse. Especially all the people I know who have gone through these hard times, living here in America, we have no right to say our life is so bad that we should die. Our blessings far outweigh the hard times, we just have to see them. This is something I have personally come to terms with, that no matter how frustrated or tired I get, I am so immensely blessed. I know this is the same for everyone else who takes a breath today, simply because they were able to take that breath. We have no right to or reason to end our lives, when things can turn around so simply, so easily.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Life is like a box...
Ok, so I got the metaphor to end all metahphors, right here. Well not really, but I'm pretty proud of it so don't knock me for it, at least not till you hear me out. First, we have life, the experience. Vague I know, but intentionally so. Second, the metaphorical part. Life is like unleashing the power of a super bouncy ball inside a small confined space. There, I said it. Track with me, let's see where this goes, I'm curious myself.
So, first off, that would be a pretty cool thing to see, take a glass box and just launch in a super ball and watch it go. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen. You can guide it at the beginning, we can choose the angle and speed at which said ball enters the box, but once it is in there, we can do nothing but sit back and watch. If we were to try to interfere, for the most part we would only make things worse. I feel that the entrance in is really like childhood in our lives. We are shaped by our surroundings, guided by our parents, preparing for our entrance into the world outside, or in this case, inside. Once our parents release us, it is up to us to make the best of our situation and do what we can with what we are given.
Once inside, especially if this super ball entered at high speed, things are going to be spectacular. Rebounding constantly at high speed, there is no way of possibly knowing what is going to happen next. We try to trace the movements of the ball, seeing where it was and where it is going, but it can be hard. In the early stages of life, we all tend to move around a lot, figuring things out for ourselves. We want to constantly try something new, if this does not work, how about that, and so forth, just constantly bouncing around, experiencing everything we can.
Also, you can try to predict the path of the ball. You look at it, try to judge the speed and angles etc, hoping to understand the rebound and what will happen next. The thing is, even if you could predict the next rebound or two even, after that, you are out of luck, and even those two would be hard to see coming. It is the same in life. As humans, we change constantly. We do not even know where we ourselves are going to end up next, and to try and predict us from an outside perspective, tis nigh impossible. We might look ahead in our lives, during high school for instance, and see that we are going to graduate and then go to college, but from there do we really know what is next? I know that I don't, not for myself. I expect to be shaped by coming experiences, in ways I cannot predict, and that I will push off of those experiences into new things I cannot even fathom at this moment.
Finally, things eventually come to an end. The ball slows down, becomes more predictable, eventually just rolling to a stop in a corner of the box. The same can be said, to some extent, for us as humans. We bounce around so quickly early on, but eventually we settle into the pace of life, to the point that we can see our own inevitable future. While it is unavoidable, it is also not some terrible fate either. That ball may have come to a stop, but one shake of the box and there is a whole new adventure on the move again. It comes down to the same for us. We eventually come to the end of our crazy and rambunctious lives, but that is only the beginning of the next adventure. So yeah, life, it is totally like a box...with a bouncy ball inside...
So, first off, that would be a pretty cool thing to see, take a glass box and just launch in a super ball and watch it go. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen. You can guide it at the beginning, we can choose the angle and speed at which said ball enters the box, but once it is in there, we can do nothing but sit back and watch. If we were to try to interfere, for the most part we would only make things worse. I feel that the entrance in is really like childhood in our lives. We are shaped by our surroundings, guided by our parents, preparing for our entrance into the world outside, or in this case, inside. Once our parents release us, it is up to us to make the best of our situation and do what we can with what we are given.
Once inside, especially if this super ball entered at high speed, things are going to be spectacular. Rebounding constantly at high speed, there is no way of possibly knowing what is going to happen next. We try to trace the movements of the ball, seeing where it was and where it is going, but it can be hard. In the early stages of life, we all tend to move around a lot, figuring things out for ourselves. We want to constantly try something new, if this does not work, how about that, and so forth, just constantly bouncing around, experiencing everything we can.
Also, you can try to predict the path of the ball. You look at it, try to judge the speed and angles etc, hoping to understand the rebound and what will happen next. The thing is, even if you could predict the next rebound or two even, after that, you are out of luck, and even those two would be hard to see coming. It is the same in life. As humans, we change constantly. We do not even know where we ourselves are going to end up next, and to try and predict us from an outside perspective, tis nigh impossible. We might look ahead in our lives, during high school for instance, and see that we are going to graduate and then go to college, but from there do we really know what is next? I know that I don't, not for myself. I expect to be shaped by coming experiences, in ways I cannot predict, and that I will push off of those experiences into new things I cannot even fathom at this moment.
Finally, things eventually come to an end. The ball slows down, becomes more predictable, eventually just rolling to a stop in a corner of the box. The same can be said, to some extent, for us as humans. We bounce around so quickly early on, but eventually we settle into the pace of life, to the point that we can see our own inevitable future. While it is unavoidable, it is also not some terrible fate either. That ball may have come to a stop, but one shake of the box and there is a whole new adventure on the move again. It comes down to the same for us. We eventually come to the end of our crazy and rambunctious lives, but that is only the beginning of the next adventure. So yeah, life, it is totally like a box...with a bouncy ball inside...
Friday, April 2, 2010
Professional vs. Personal
The only time I can think of where I was forced to behave in a way that I personally did not agree with was in a debate assignment for a school. I was taking a summer class at a college, and in the second week of the class we were all assigned different sides of debates, in which we had to research and argue whichever side we were given. In this assignment, I was forced to argue, or debate, in favor of torture. I had to arge for the sanction of prisoners held by the United States, in hopes of gaining information or anything else that might be gained. This was hard for me, because that was not a topic which I agreed with. Even after doing some research into this topic, reading many arguements for torture, I found that I still could not bring myself to agree with it.
This became a challenge for me, to actually prepare and compose arguements for something that I in my heart did not agree with. While we were not expected to relate to our topics, we were still required to prepare the arguements for them, and then have an actual debate about it with the opposing party. But I found it was quite a learning experience for me, I had to force myself to look at a topic that I did not see favorably, and do my best to understand it. I had to put myself in the shoes of someone who I did not see eye to eye with, and do my best to relate to them, to understand why they felt the way they did, and to do my best to agree with them, even if our agreement would not be permanent.
When I look back now, this is an assignment that I am so very thankful for. It taught me that there is always another side to every story, that no matter how I feel, there are other perspectives out there that I must respect. Now obviously this was not a very easy thing for me to do, but I learned so much in the process of it. Since then I have been able to put this into practice more and more, in many different ways. It continues to be a challenge for me, to remember that no matter how strongly I feel, how strong my opinions are, that there will be an opposing side who feels just as strongly as I do. There is nothing wrong with this, it is the right of everyone to make decisions of this sort for themselves. We cannot force our opinions on anyone else, we can only present our side, listen to their side, and basically just agree to disagree.
This became a challenge for me, to actually prepare and compose arguements for something that I in my heart did not agree with. While we were not expected to relate to our topics, we were still required to prepare the arguements for them, and then have an actual debate about it with the opposing party. But I found it was quite a learning experience for me, I had to force myself to look at a topic that I did not see favorably, and do my best to understand it. I had to put myself in the shoes of someone who I did not see eye to eye with, and do my best to relate to them, to understand why they felt the way they did, and to do my best to agree with them, even if our agreement would not be permanent.
When I look back now, this is an assignment that I am so very thankful for. It taught me that there is always another side to every story, that no matter how I feel, there are other perspectives out there that I must respect. Now obviously this was not a very easy thing for me to do, but I learned so much in the process of it. Since then I have been able to put this into practice more and more, in many different ways. It continues to be a challenge for me, to remember that no matter how strongly I feel, how strong my opinions are, that there will be an opposing side who feels just as strongly as I do. There is nothing wrong with this, it is the right of everyone to make decisions of this sort for themselves. We cannot force our opinions on anyone else, we can only present our side, listen to their side, and basically just agree to disagree.
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