Today I talk about suicide.
I remember the first time I wanted to end my life. I was in elementary school and I got in a lot of heat from my mom because I did bad at school. I remember this because it was such a distinct feeling I never got before, I wanted to jump out of the window from the high rise apartment building we lived in. I remember being very angry and I wanted to do something with the anger I felt, and for some reason on that day it was to end my life.
That must have been a fairly shocking experience to my consciousness because since then I have never felt the urge to end my life. I think my consciousness saw what my unconscious was capable of, and they had a nice talk to discuss some things. My mom yelled at me after that, sometimes about grades sometimes about other things, she yelled at me harder than before at times but still I never felt that urge come back.
There was a similar but different pattern of thought that emerged in my early 30’s, and that was me wanting to stop living. I think there’s a big difference between the two, wanting to end my life vs. stop living; the former has some active energy with it while the latter is more of a resignation.
At the time I had been running, running, running on and on to try to get to some better place in life. I hated being in my current life but it was a prerequisite for a better future. My parents had invested in that better future and I saw things from their perspective, what they thought was good was also good by my standards and it made no sense for me to give it up. But I had been trying to chase that illusion for 30+ years and ironically I had never been closer to that dream, but I could not find the energy to continue.
Why all of a sudden? Well, part of it may be I an out of the gas in my gas tank. No matter how good a car is, it can’t drive 100mph for days. The bigger reason was I could tell that the biggest milestone ahead of me would lead to the same chase; so what if I got my green card? I would always have the next thing to chase, like being a director at a company or being the CTO of a company.
Even that won’t be it, because then I want to be the most successful person doing that job. And then what? I’d need to sustain it. Then what? I’d need to reinvent myself again and again and again and again because there is always something better, something more to do. I already made it this far; isn’t it a waste to not go the extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, …, mile?
This is where a lot of people’s thought processes stop, because this is the point where you have to make a choice.
If you hold on to your belief system about what is good, what is to be pursued — you have to stop, whatever that may mean for you. You may end your life. You may stop trying and start descending. You may mentally check out and not care about anything anymore. You may recover and gain your drive back again, but you’re still headed towards the same looping cycle and the worst part is, you see this so clearly now. You can tell what’s going to happen when you keep going on.
The alternative is to change your belief system about what is good, what is to be pursued. Why this is so difficult is, people can’t even usually tell if they’re actually changing their belief or if they’re just “giving up”. Suppose I think the entire meaning of my life is going to New York by feet from California. But throughout the journey I get really tired and want to give up. But I tell myself I’m not a quitter, and my life will have great meaning once I reach New York.
There’s a big difference between deciding “wow, I’m super tired and I really don’t think I can do this; I don’t think the NY by feet life is meant for me” vs. “wait, why am I thinking the meaning of my life depends on going to NY by foot? I don’t need to live like that, I can do whatever I want!”. Because in the former, there will always be a lingering feeling of a meaningless life and the disappointment of giving up. Why? Because the BELIEF of needing to go to NY by feet to have a meaningful life, that has not changed.
But it is that simple change of belief that redefines everything about your life. The pitfall here again is to think you need to switch to a NEW belief that redefines everything about your life. The key insight needed here is, as long as there is a “good” path to take, the pattern of suffering will continue. There is no objectively “good” path to take in life for your life to have meaning.
One might argue, “isn’t that also a belief switch?”. And it definitely can be, if you completely fall into nihilism and start saying no path means anything. On the one hand there is truth to that, no path in the long run means anything; but why does that need to be depressing? The underlying premise that makes most nihilists be pessimistic is that things are supposed to have inherent meaning. And that meaning will make you FEEL not negative.
Regardless of how you live your life, you will sometimes feel good and sometimes feel bad. That is just the quality of the heart. While there is no objective reason to live, there is no objective reason to stop life. When you let things be, life will continue until it doesn’t. In this natural process called life, what do you want to do with it if you don’t want to suffer?
This is the big question that you can bring to the coaching conversations with me. As always, you can get started by emailing billy@julylifecoach.com.