REASON TO LIVE
There is this old friend of mine, XYZ,
who seemed to find loss of reasons to live. He wanted me to help him with finding
them. I wrote a letter to him 5 years back that I am opening for all my readers
after few editions…it may be of use to some…Do let me know of the experience…after
you finish reading
Dear XYZ,
If you want me to be honest with you,
ya…when you asked me last night “Tell me what to do, I will surely try if I
have already not tried”, I felt happy and confused at the same time. Happy
because someone like you believes so much in me and confused because I was at
loss of ideas suddenly. After a lot of thinking, I have concluded that you only
can find a reason for continuing your life; I can only help you find it. I am
not sure if I will be able to convince you or not, but I ensure you I will try
to explain myself most clearly. It might seem a bit stupid that I googled
‘reasons to live’. I am not someone who understands the concept of suicide, and
that too because of a reason that doesn’t deserve it. If I ever think of committing
suicide, it will be because I find a reason big enough to kill myself, not
because I don’t have a reason to live. Had it been anyone else, I would have
been alarmed at any such decision. However, in your case, perhaps I was able to
understand since I can see what’s stopping you from wanting to live. The loss
of any reason accounts to be a big issue to me too. May be science taught us to
rationalize everything, find cause for everything and search for reasons of
everything!
Perhaps being alive is reason enough
to continue living, perhaps tomorrow is reason enough, perhaps being able to
see miracles is reason enough, perhaps mom’s desserts are reason enough,
perhaps plans to achieve something is reason enough, perhaps maintaining
ecological balance is reason enough!!….But I know in such a case, none of the
reasons will suffice. It’s not because your life is actually short of reasons,
but perhaps because you have closed doors for those reasons. I strongly believe
that every person is different. By being in this world, you add something that
was not there before and will never be again. You surely have a purpose. The
purpose of life is a life of purpose.
You say that your parents will
overcome your loss. Let me tell you that they may overcome the demise of XYZ,
but never of their son. You can’t imagine the pain in a father’s heart at the
death of a young son. They have worked up whole married life to make your life
better and this is not a good time to take leave. I know this is not a reason
for you as you want something on personal level, but please think it over
twice.
There are people who wish to live for
another day, another hour, another moment but they don’t have a choice. You
have. You can choose between life and the end of it. I just want your choice to
be correct…and I am not biased. I will try to understand your viewpoint too.
Make your story count. And end it only when you think you made it count.
There are so many things you have got
to do. If you were a married man with a wife and children, I am sure your
perspective would have been different. And trust me; 5 years down the lane, you
will be thankful that I stopped you from calling it a life! Who knows a person
of your caliber may give the world a third category of engines, a novel magic
trick that can’t be beaten, a counselor who can give people reasons to live.
Perhaps you don’t give future and dreams space in your life. Dreams are what
keep most people going. There should be a reason for tomorrow.
We both don’t believe in life after death. So
technically, we have just one life without Ctrl+Z. And wasting it without
trying and waiting with patience for the reason to come up to the mind, can be a
bit of a loss.
"The butterfly counts not months but
moments, and has time enough." ~ Rabindranath Tagore
Few
people on the internet expressed their reasons to live as follows: Find if you
share their reasons to live:
·
I have been depressed for a while,
but on Friday, a dyslexic boy who I have been teaching to read finally managed
to get through a chapter without stopping, the look on his face when he managed
it, made me happier than I had ever been before, and since then everything's
seemed a lot brighter and bad things have seemed smaller and less important
·
Because before when you thought back to a time in the future
when things were different to how you think they might be now, you wouldn't
have realized that the way it seems to you then would be so much better!
·
The challenge of realizing that how you perceive things
changes. How you perceived it before, at the moment when it happens, and then
later on are almost invariably quite different, sure makes life interesting!
·
Your life is gift, but
not given to you alone. Everyone you know has their own precious
"you" that they love and cherish. Would go into the homes of the
people who love you and smash up their precious things?
·
Music that soothes the
soul, art is reason in itself.
·
Because tomorrow is a
new beginning!
·
Because you never know
when the next miracle is going to happen!
·
Because all the effort
and thought you put into dying can also be channeled into helping you
live....and however bad the now is, however you feel and whatever pain and
heart wrenching anguish you feel, it will move, grow and change and ultimately
lessen and pass.....universal law of recovery. Death however is completely
final .There is no second thoughts, no changing your mind and no passing.
·
Because if you aren't
on this earth you cannot feel the wind rush past you on a flying fox, the
bubbles pound your skin in a spa bath; you can't see the gorgeous colors of a
sun rise or experience the calm of that time of day, and you can’t smell the
rain on the hot pavement.
·
Suicide does not end
your pain; it just passes it on to the ones you love.
·
Living is really hard,
but death is forever. We’re all going to die eventually, so what’s your rush'
Even if you think committing suicide will make you seem tragic and romantic and
cool, you’ll never know what happened anyway. Don’t you want to know how your
life was supposed to turn out? Wouldn’t you like to see what you’re made of?
·
If people think things
are at rock bottom and couldn't get any worse that means they can only get
better from there. Think about friends and family whose hearts would be
breaking. It's not the answer, live for them if you don't want to live for yourself.
But nothing that happens, as bad as it gets, would ever be worth not being able
to experience the world around us, for every person with a problem there is
always someone who will listen.
·
If you take a decision to abstain from suicide. You can live carefree
and off the edge. Hence you can try anything that a life-loving person will
hesitate doing. Research indicates
lots of us are happier when we feel like we have some control over our lives.
·
General randomness
leads to disaster more often than not (check out the law of entropy)!!! :P
·
I have been a drug
addict for 30years. I am now 2 and half years clean from it and life without
drugs is a miracle for me. And here is a poem I wrote for this.
THE SECRET
I have come to this juncture in my life, merely because
something in me kept saying you deserve to be happy.
Every single moment that I have come through,
were all prepared for this moment right now. Imagine what you can do from this
day forward with what you now know.
Now you get that you are the creator of your own
destiny.
So how much more do you get to do, how much more do
you get to be?
How many more people do you get to bless, simply by
your mere existence what will you do with this moment?
How will you seize this moment.
No one else can dance
your dance, no one can sing your song, and no one can write your story.
What you are, what you do, begins right now?
GERARD BUTTERFIELD
Here is another short
poem that might make you understand why to live……
THE MISSION
There is not one of
us from the day were born knows our purpose or our mission in life.
All you have to really understand what am I doing
here, so our purpose is what you say it is.
Your mission is the mission you give yourself.
Your life will be what you create it as.
And no one will stand in judgment of it now or
ever.
You will get to fill your life with whatever you
want.
If you have filled it in with baggage from the past
wipe it clean, erase everything from the past that does not serve you, and be
grateful it brought you to this place now.
And now to a new beginning.
You have a clean slate, and you can start over.
Right here, Right now.
Find your joy and live it.
Ok, tell me one
thing, if you are asked by a genie as of now, what will your 3 wishes be, if I
may add make them realistic? I am sure you won’t waste your wish in asking for
death. That is something you yourself can accomplish. So, just make a quick
note of these wishes. And you need to do this. Make the wish list.
Now suppose for a
moment you don’t have any plans of suicide. Can these three wishes become your
reason to live? Can you live to turn these to reality?
If I weren’t alive
today, suppose I committed suicide 2 years back, we wouldn’t have met, never
talked and you might have taken the step and we both might have ended up dead.
I surely like this better. I have liked the 2 years more than I would have
liked death certainly. Life is called life because of the life in life! And
it’s important to live fully before you die. LIVE before you die. Make it
count. Death is an easy option, Life is difficult. Choose what suits you better
J
It is as we continue
living that we realize truly how wonderful life is! It can be seen only by
giving life a chance.
Don’t you want to live on and know if Hillary
is better than Obama, or if Higgs boson exists, if someone in your era
discovers the reason for Mona Lisa’s smile, or may be see Darwin’s theory being
negated or see the way a close friend fulfilled his/her dream, or see another
Sherlock Holmes writer coming up? I am sure you are thinking, “How does it
matter anyway?” And my answer is, it actually doesn’t matter, none of it
matters an ounce. But that’s what life is made of-little silly things that
don’t matter! But you enjoyed every bit of it when you were a child. You know why?
Because you didn’t think of it…because you enjoyed what came your way. Try
doing that again. Stop searching for a rational clue, stop being clever. Remain
silly for a moment, and tell me honestly, does life matter?
I remember you saying that you don’t value life. Still you believe in helping
others. You respect the liberty to live, the right to survival. Just think of
it. Why it is not termed as ‘the right to die’? There are numerous ways to kill
yourself but there is just one way of living-by not dying! Life has beautiful
colors, stupendous chances, lovely people, great purposes and what not. Death
has the end of it. It will eventually come anyway, why not live till then?
Finding a purpose seems to be a difficult task till you don’t open yourself to
the resonance of the universe. Try establishing a connection with people,
things and I am sure you will find reasons. Get hold of a reason that makes you
feel better in any way and you think is worth living for. Just be patient and
don’tbe hasty with such a big decision like life and death.
As far as I am concerned, I wish you
could remain here and stop thinking about any attempt in the other direction.
May be you can’t think of a reason because you are thinking too much. It’s said
that, “Everything that you run after, makes you run after it. Stop running and
it comes and sit at your shoulder” Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have ever
known what Uncyclopedia, deterministic theory, being judgmental, magic and so
many other things were. You add one primary color to my life that no one else
can, exactly as everybody else in my life does. You are important to me, and I
am sure to many others in your life. I supposed
love can be an anchor point for everybody. You seem reluctant to that too.
Don’t stop yourself from getting close to somebody. Love comes when you stop looking & start
living. And if not that, concentrate on the love your
mother’s eyes hold. I just have one request, open up and give life a chance!
Don’t ask yourself ‘why?’ instead ask ‘why not?’
You gave a second
thought after I met u, by chance discussed the purpose of life while talking. May
be what u say is true-deterministic. Perhaps it can happen only the way it’s
happening. Perhaps because you perform magic tricks, you can rationalize it,
but for me, magic is that you gave it a second thought, just because I said. It
feels great that somebody is alive because I chose life 2 years back! J
Life begins when you open
your eyes to all the beautiful things to be happy about.
Life surely means more. Try and understand the value of it.
Visit hospitals, let yourself become aware that there are people who die, but
wanted to live. The main protagonist in
the movie Troy says, “The Gods envy us, because we are mortal, because any
moment can be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed”.
Beautify the existence. Do all you always wanted to apart from dying!