September 10th was World Suicide Prevention Day.
I’ve had family members who committed suicide, and truthfully I will be a liar if I say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind before. Perhaps I even went as far as wanting to do the act when I was younger.
I suppose what I would like to say is, growing up and believe me, even into adulthood, I had this crazy idea that out there, there is a “normal” or an “ideal of life”, a “secret” that was not passed onto me.
Being brought up as a Christian, I still fight with the idea of a God or a Higher Power. Some days I am for it and some days I am not.
Then one day, this crazy thought passed my mind, what if there is
No Secret
No Ideal
No Normal
and everyone you thought had those things, was just as clueless as I am?? Or even worse, thinking the same as I am.
Then I started thinking, how much do we as humans control??
Every day, every night, we are forced to take a leap of faith.
There is no guarantee in life. I could go to bed perfectly healthy, and not wake up tomorrow.
This idea is petrifying. When the illusion of control fades away be it due to the loss of a loved one, diseases, abuse, the list goes on.
The difference here is, that those who do go through with the act, don’t see any way out, once this illusion of control is ripped away.
Of course, there are other reasons for suicide, depression, etc. I am merely scraping the surface.
By giving it some thought, I can sympathise.
The message of hope I want to convey is, that you’re not alone.
Here is the truth…
We’re all clueless.
We’re all making it up as we go along.
Ignorance & Arrogance is the currency for buying more “Control Illusion”
Since the dawn of time itself, mankind has been creating gods to give us comfort and establishing societies and religions to feed the illusion of control, when in reality, we have very little control over our lives.
Stop searching for something that doesn’t exist and learn to accept what is.
Therein lies true control and power.
We can control our Thoughts, Actions, and our Speech.
Take back your power.
I will end with the Serenity Prayer: (I know, The Irony!)
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Bianca Berg on Unsplash
