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| A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE CHAPTER 19 |
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I can't know whether or not you have a philosophy of life. But maybe, if you've been thinking about the forever decision, you don't. Maybe, because life has seemed so unbearable lately, your beliefs in what is positive and valuable and worthwhile about life have been shattered. Maybe, in this dark hour, you are having trouble finding a purpose, a meaning, a reason to go on living. I don't know how it is with you and, unless we meet somewhere sometime, there is no way I can. But having worked with many people like yourself, I know for certain that one of the things we most need to see us through the tough times is a belief that life, despite its pain and disappointments is, in the final analysis, better than whatever death holds for us. And this belief, however we put words or actions to it, is our philosophy of life. I don't know when or how one develops a philosophy of life. I am not sure how one comes to own a particular set of values or ideas or convictions or principles or whatever you choose to call those beliefs around which our lives turn more or less smoothly, but somehow, as we add one year upon another, I believe all of us come to some reckoning of our unique place in humanity, in the world, and in the cosmos. At least from my point of view, without knowing this place, we are never quite complete, can never be quite content, and can never feel entirely at peace in this sometimes crazy and painful world. More importantly, without knowing in what we truly believe, we are like blades of grass - easily blown one way or another in the winds of a crisis. Without a central core of firm beliefs or faith in ourselves or in our God, we can become the victims of our own self-doubt, the victims of our own emotions and, yes, the victims of our own hostility or hopelessness. I have often thought that much of what a client derives from seeing a therapist has less to do with what the therapist does, than with what he or she believes - which is why I have encouraged young therapists to be positive about life, about the human spirit, and about man's ability to rise above his circumstances and to change his life for the better. If a therapist is not hopeful, how can a client be? If a therapist does not affirm the value of life and make strong arguments against death and suicide, how can the sufferer? When I began writing this book, I read all I could about the ethics of suicide - the case for rational suicide, the case for letting people kill themselves if they so wished, the case that therapists have or do not have the right to impose their beliefs on others or to intervene or not intervene with the force of law to prevent someone from killing himself. As I read this material I was struck that much of what the experts have to say on this subject is no more or less than the expression of their personal philosophies of life - its value, its sanctity, its purpose, its utility to others or to the future of mankind. This, I suppose, is how it should be in the world of ethics and philosophy. As I'm not an expert, I don't know. But my reading did make one thing clear: In my work with suicidal people I have decided that once someone has come into my office and entered my frame of reference, they have entered my value system, my personal and, yes, philosophical world. And therefore, as a counselor and healer, my decision will always be to do all I can to prevent what I consider to be an unnecessary act of suicide. Since you have read most of this book, I suppose in a way I have tricked you. Maybe, before you began to read what I have written, you were hoping to find some justification from me that your life was, truly, not worth living. And now you find, in the last chapter, that I offered no such justifications and that I am an enemy of the forever decision in almost every single circumstance. I hope you do not feel tricked, but if you do, I hope you will see my purpose as I intended it - and that purpose is in keeping with what I believe: To keep you alive until you find your own reasons to live. So, at the close of this book, I am going to ask you to think about your philosophy of life or, if you feel you do not have one, to consider that you might need one now - that you need to find some new reasons to live. For I am convinced that if you will but take the time to examine your life, your goals, your good traits and your bad, your accomplishments and your failures, that you will be the stronger for the effort and that that strength, that self-knowledge, once you have gained it, is the best defense against ending your life by suicide. I do not think it is possible to live many more than a dozen years and not develop some beliefs about what life is all about and what it means to be a human being. And so, no matter what your age may be now, I believe you have and hold some things to be true and that, though you may not think so, you do have something of a philosophy of life already. These may be religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs, beliefs about how people are, how they act, and how they should treat one another. And I believe you already know a great deal about yourself. The question, then, is not whether you have a philosophy of life, but rather that you may need to expand upon the one you have; enrich it, nurture it some way so that your philosophy of life becomes a great flywheel that spins and spins and spins and carries you through the bad times. Not to come to know what you believe in and, thereby, what your life means is, maybe, to start to dwell upon your own death and how to achieve it. The idea of our own death by suicide may get us around and through the long and lonely nights, but it is our dreams of what tomorrow can be that make the days endurable and worthwhile. An oft quoted saying goes: Without our dreams, we die. My own philosophy of life is not important. And though I have thought long and hard about what I believe, I would not ask that anyone see things the way I do, or feel things the way I feel them, or come to the same conclusions I have come to about the human condition and what it means to be a member of the species. My philosophy is mine and while it may be shared by some, it is not shared by all. Nor would I expect it to be. What is important for me is that I have a personal philosophy and that, when the hard decisions have to be made, I can make them with some sense of internal consistency, with a feeling that I am acting on principles that I have come to call my own. They may be right or they may be wrong, but I am willing to own them and say of them that they are what make me who, not what, I am. Give Yourself Gift What I would ask of you now is that you give yourself a very precious gift. And that gift is this: The time, the space, and the solitude to begin to sort out what it means to you to be a human being and to have a life to live. Admittedly, this is a spiritual quest, even an existential one. And, some might argue, a psychologist hasn't much business mucking around with things philosophical or religious or spiritual. But what others think about me at this moment doesn't really matter. What matters is that I hold true to what I believe, and one of those beliefs is that I feel strongly that if you will begin to look inward and begin that difficult search for who you are and what you can become, you will be the stronger for it. At this, maybe the most troubled time in your life, I realize that such a search is going to be difficult. But it is too easy, I think, for all of us to simply accept the beliefs of others as our own. We live in a time of fast foods and convenience stores and cute quips that pass for wisdom. In what we call modern life, I have sometimes wondered if we are not all the victims of a fast-lane mentality that makes simple solutions like suicide easier than struggling with our own thoughts and fears and doubts and learning to sacrifice for love rather than to expect it to be given us with a money back guarantee. You have no doubt heard the now-popular saying, "Life is a bitch, and then you die.” It is a clever one-liner. But is it true? Is it true for you? When things have not been going right in my world, I have repeated this little phrase myself. But these eight words are a powerful and negative statement about life. While I may make a joke with them from time to time, I do not really believe them to be true for me at all times and under all circumstances. Quite the opposite. I could just as well say, "Life is a picnic, but sometimes you get ants.” The first one-liner justifies my occasional pessimism, the second challenges me to see a bigger picture. It is up to me to choose between them. I make that choice - consciously, daily. I would ask that you do the same for yourself. My point? However we come to believe something, it is important that we stop, think, and decide whether we truly believe what we are saying. Because when the forever decision starts running around in our heads, is it not too easy to avoid the hard questions and opt out of the only life we have? Is it not too easy to say to ourselves that if "Life is a bitch, and then you die-then why not die now and let it over with?" It seems to me to be a solution that is too simple, too slick and too easy. Such an idea is a dime's worth of philosophy in a million-dollar world. So, I would ask you, is it not time to do some of the hard things for yourself, to begin to ask some of the difficult questions of yourself? Is it not time to learn who you are and to come to know what you believe in? If you are like the rest of us, you won't like some of what you see in the mirror. But, so what - they're saving perfection for us in the next life. Right now we've got to get along with the bumps and pimples, the bad habits, the weaknesses, the failings, the ugly little aspects of our character that we'd rather be without but that seem to stick to us like tar. Right now we, all of us, need to get on better terms with ourselves so that, despite our imperfections, we can get going with what is good and valuable and worthwhile and learn to stop hurting ourselves and those we love. It will not come as chilling news to you that no one gets out of this life alive and that, while we are here, we need something to believe in to keep us going. I don't know what this needs to be for you or where you will find it, but I know that if you will but look you will find something, something worth living for, some reason to put one foot in front of the other until a better day arrives. I will confess and share with you that some of the longest therapy hours I have spent have been with suicidal people who were utterly convinced that their lives were essentially finished and the only thing left that needed doing was to get the dying over with. They could not, despite all their efforts and mine, find a way in which to feel good about staying alive. But, because they didn't quit and I didn't quit, we made it through. And, in time, things got sorted out and we (and I mean we) survived. I will tell you what I have often told others who were in the midst of a suicidal crisis and who were searching for some reason to go on. They, maybe like you, felt lost and hopeless and as if nothing held any promise for them. They did not have a faith in some higher power to sustain them. And, despite how much I would like to have infected them with my zest for living and my philosophy of life, this is not an easy thing to do. Because for all the reasons a person enters a suicidal crisis, it is not a state of mind easily switched around by another's optimism. And so, as a way to find a common ground to bide the time, I have told this story. It is as if we are two people on a ship that is lost at sea and, so far as we can know, the captain has fallen overboard and no one is at the helm. The radio is out. There is a heavy fog all around us and no one can see where we are bound. We can see no beacon of light from a friendly shore. We can hear no sound of a rescue ship. One of us is terribly frightened. The other of us (me), is also frightened - but a bit less. I am a little less frightened because I have something to do to keep me busy. I have a job to do. My job is to give comfort until we are found or until the fog clears away and we can both see clearly again. This is the nature of our relationship. For me to feel good about giving support and comfort and encouragement, I need you to be willing to hang on and not to jump overboard because your terror of the unknown is greater than your fear of the here and now. And so, together, we will share our fear. And in this sharing we will come to know each other. We will talk and joke and tell stories and be kind to each other. We may not soon be rescued and may never be, but while we are lost, we will be together and, together, our fears will subside and we will find purpose in our being. I hope, now that you have read this book, that you will do for yourself what you must do to keep going - to reach out, to make that telephone call, to talk to someone you know and respect, to seek out a therapist, to find your way back to God, or whatever it is that you need to do to end your isolation and suffering. If you will do this, now, today, and give yourself the time it takes for the fog to lift and the crisis to pass, then I know you will make it and I will feel nothing short of wonderful for having shared this time with you. I wish to leave you with one thought. It is from the Talmud. "Whoever preserves one life, it is as if he preserved an entire world." By choosing to live, you can be that person. |
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