I dedicate my brief meditation on suicide prevention to Brad Delp (1951 – 2007), the former musician and lead singer of the Rock Band Boston. On 9 March 2007, at the relatively young age of 55, he ended his own life with a note clipped to him, which read, “‘I am a lonely soul.’”
If you are feeling suicidal, all alone, seeing no way out of your problem, except by ending your life, please “reach out” to someone; don’t “carry the load” by yourself. Allow another trusted person – a friend, confidant or counselor – to help you “shoulder” your burden.
You may also call a crisis counselor at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The phone number is 1-800-273-8255. Please don’t die before “your time is up;” or, as I tell the students in my university lectures on suicide, ‘Don’t die before you die.’
Please live! Live for someone who loves you; someone who needs you in his or her life. Live for a wife or a husband; live for a child who loves and adores you. Live to complete your daily obligations to your family, society or the community to which you belong.
If none of those reasons work for you, then live to help others, to “reach out” to them in acts of service. Live to find new projects to complete and new “dreams” to achieve. If all those things I mentioned still don’t work for you, then find your own worthwhile reasons to live. Choose life, not death!
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