Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Why to live?

We don't ask to be born, so why do we have to choose to live? I have recently have had many thoughts on this subject. The beginning of this year (2014) has been one of my hardest years of life as of yet. It compairs to the time my father decided to take his own life when I was just a young teenager. My father had a very hard time with all he had been through in life. My grandmother once told me the last time she saw her son was the day he left for the Vietnam war. When he came back from war she said he was not the same man she have birth to. Between the war and making poor decesions on how to take care of his family. He ended up turning the only thing he lived for upside down. My brothers and mother decided they had enough. They disassociated themselves from him and this ended up leaving him feeling like he had nothing left to live for. So he decided to take his own life. For many years I was very upset with him because I felt he was very selfish for leaving us. His death broke up our family for good and it has never been the same since. I resented him for this for a long time. I then realized years later that maybe it was selfish of me being mad at him for wanting to end his pain. See many people look at suicide as a cowards way out. I don't believe this to be true. One thing my father never was, was a coward. He was a very large man who didn't take crap from anyone and always came at a problem head on. He was one of the most feared men I have ever known. When people saw Bob Stebbins mad they would get as far away as they could from him. He was that intimating to many many people. Anyone who knew him would never say he was a coward or soft. However those who didn't know him and heard that he committed suicide would say he was a coward for doing so. These same people could not be any more wrong. Just because someone decides they had enough doesn't mean they are weak. It means that their breaking point has been met. It actually takes a lot a courage for someone to take their own life. Many people have said they tried to take their own life but failed.  As my father once said "We try to not die everyday. So if you want to take your own life it shouldn't be hard. It's easy to end your life you just have to have the balls to do it". He was right, it is easy to take your own life. You just have to have the balls to actually do it. So to call one a coward for suicide doesn't make sense to me. Now that we have come to terms that it truly isn't the cowardly way out then what is it? I feel it's the way one can end the pain and suffering once and for all. If you were sick and always in pain and they had a pill to make the pain go away for good I am sure you would take that pill. Well that's what my father did. He took enough pills to end his pain forever. It was not his choice to be brought into this world. It was not his choice to live the life he was given. He was born and given the life he got. How is it fair to blame him for not wanting live this life he never asked for? This is a question I ask myself a lot. Yes we do have choices in life but those choices are not our own to choose from. So if we don't ask to be born. We don't ask for the choices we are given. Then what choices in life do we really have? Well we can choose to live a life we hate. We can choose to try to live a different life but that doesn't mean we will. We can choose to live or not to. As my father once said you choose to live everyday by not trying to die. So if we can choose to not die then why can't we choose to not live? Nobody in this world asked to be born and given life. If life is all about choices then the choice to live or not should be just that, our choice. However society has made it out that it shouldn't be our choice. Just look back at Dr Kevorkian. He helped terminally ill people who were living horribly the choice to end their pain and suffering. I for one always supported him for helping people leave the pain and suffering behind for good. What is life worth living if you're not happy living it? Well the only thing I can think of is family and loved ones. This still brings a tough question. Is it fair to the one suffering to continue to suffer for the sake of loved ones being sad they are gone? I personally feel that it's selfish for those loved ones to make the person suffering suffer longer because of their own feelings. Did my father's suicide bring pain to our family? Yes, however we all still are able to live our lives without him here. So why make someone feel bad about wanting leave the world they are suffering in? For your own sake of just wanting that person in your life? I consider that more selfish then anything.  

I recently made a post on Facebook that I wish that the lord would either fix me or take me. I just want this suffering to end for good. Many people commented on this post and said I can't leave this world. That to many people look up to me and need me for insperation. Now it makes me feel good I inspire so many. However does inspiring these people (some I have never met) worth my suffering? I didn't ask to be an insperation to so many. I didn't ask to be a poster child for the diseases I am battling. I was given that title and was told that I will be the face of these issues even if I didn't ask to be. How is that fair to me? How is it that just because I have a disease that others have makes ME the poster child? Why does it mean that I have to continue to live suffering just to make other people feel better about their own situation? I am told that I have to continue to fight because others look up to me. How is that fair? Why should I have to carry the burden of the pain and suffering just to make others feel better about their own situation? I am not Jesus Christ, I don't believe I was put in this world to suffer for mankind. Why should I feel guilty about leaving this world for the sake of others who I don't even know personally. The truth is that I know all these same people would live on with me dead or not. So why try to make me feel guilty about these thoughts of wanting to end it all? The only people I should feel guilty hurting are my loved ones. However go back to the beginning of this post. Should I truly feel guilty of wanting to end my suffering because it may make life harder on those I love? That's the hardest question because I don't want to hurt those I love. I do however want to stop the hurting of myself. So what is the correct answer? Society will say suicide is not the correct answer. I personally disagree to a point because I know my father will never suffer again and I have lived on without him. I also learned to accept that, that's what he needed to end his pain. I love him so much that I rather him be gone then to continue to suffer the way he did. With this thought process I struggle with these questions. 

1 comment:

  1. The last thing you need is guilt. Your life is your own.

    ReplyDelete