My Life Diary

Did You Commit Suicide Today

A Page from my Life Diary

From
Life Wanderer

12th October 2005, Dasara

Did You Commit Suicide Today ?

What Suicide ? Me ? What do you mean ? Are you in your senses ? What makes you say so ? Are you crack ?
These are the typical answers one may expect for the title question. Yet most of us commit suicide several times a day. I know this statement is not palatable to us. Some may say that it is in bad taste. But it is true. Here is how.

What is suicide ? Suicide means intentionally and voluntarily killing one self. Ending our existence on this terrestrial life. This is a major event and needs a major step of crossing the line between intention and action to commit suicide. For every suicide committed, there are at least 1000 suicide candidates returning back from line of actual action for want of courage or last minute prevalence of rational mind over desperate mind. I am not referring to any of these.

The main motivating force for suicide is to find an escape from the present dead-locked situation. There is a frustration and desperation. It is giving up trying to find the solution as all the efforts to tide over the difficulty have failed. The inner energy to try harder has vanished. This is what I am trying to emphasize when I ask the title question.

We all want to do something. Sometimes we succeed. Many times we fail. When we fail, we keep on trying till we succeed. However, the struggle for trying takes its toll on our personality. It puts its permanent scars on our mind. Then we give up. We stop trying. We resign to our fate. Sometimes we strait away accept it. But many times we give it different color by saying that we do not want the intended result, we have something more important thing to do, it is not worth the struggle, I will get it at some later date, I will try in different manner at some other time, I am a different person now and has become Yogi etc. If we honestly do the everyday analysis of every minute of our life from morning to next morning, we will discover that our life is full of compromises. It may be a very minor thing as pressing the toothpaste from the wrong side, keeping the toilet seat cover down, allowing other person jumping the queue to elevator of the building, tolerating the suit not pressed properly, silently accepting being pushed by the man behind you while alighting from the bus. It may be major thing like being ignored at office in increment list. Not getting ones recognition while the boss promotes undeserving colleague on some extraneous grounds. Then there are in-between cases when we grudgingly accept the bad road conditions, higher taxes, corruption in government, hooliganism, bad management of educational institution, unemployment etc.

What happens ? We lose our zeal and enthusiasm for trying to better our life. We get into the little corner of our life for comfort and safety of the cave. Our rational mind convinces us that the trade off between the cost of the struggle and the reward thereof are not matching and it is a bad bargain. We then give up. But we do not accept the defeat. This is the worst part of the story. We give our retreat different names as indicated above. We kill a tiny fragment of our personality every time we need to but do not try to better our life. This is what I call Suicide of a Bit of our Life. Bit by bit, a major chunk of our personality is finished much before we die.

This has its major cost in terms of lack of enthusiasm and zeal to enjoy life. We then find readymade entertainment as our escape from the frustration of failures. These escape routes can be as benign as watching TV to as damaging as alcoholism, womanizing, gambling etc. The worst is yet to come. The immune system of our body gets considerably weakened and we are more susceptible to sickness.

On the other hand, trying to better our life conditions without getting the secret key is also damaging. It may sometimes cause more damage due to insults, defeats, spoiled relationships, loss of money etc.

I feel that the solution lies in always trying to better our life conditions without getting emotionally involved in the struggle. We should always be communicative about our feelings and wishes in a very clear, non offensive, polite, non-pushy non-selfish but fearless manner to the other party. We should also try to do something about the situation to be improved. While doing this we should have the love and wellbeing of the other person in our heart. We should not be violent. But we must try. Always try. If we are not passionate and emotional and egoistic in our efforts, we will not tire out with continuous struggle. In fact we should not take it as a struggle. It is the game of life. We should perform our part happily.

Many a times we have frustrating situation of having a scope to do very little or nothing in improving our situation in certain circumstances or locations. I have a easy and interesting solution for this. Remember, we must keep the fire alive. It should not die out due to lack of opportunity. I help other non-known or not-connected persons in a non-monetary way. When I buy fruits in the market, I give one or two fruits to the beggar on the street. I give fruits or sweets to our society watchmen, my driver, postman, washer-man, milk man, house maid etc alternatively. While giving the fruit or the sweet, I do not have the feeling of charity or help. I give it in the sense of returning the favour of the mother earth in having me these things. I share the wealth of the mother earth with her children. All are her children – whether they can afford to buy her wealth or not. These people are not used to receiving these gifts. It is my experience that invariably these people are greatly moved by my gesture. I get my benefit in terms of trying and succeeding in improving the welfare and goodwill of my immediate environment – may be even to a very very tiny extent.

Other thing I do is do the job of cleaning in a very small way our immediate surrounding. I do it myself. I may sweep the floor in front of my house, plant trees, do flower arrangement, burn incense sticks, water the plants outside my house, pick up rags and small paper or plastic chits lying on the floor outside my house, give water to the thirsty dogs and cats – something I am not supposed to or normally expected to do by the Society. I do it with a satisfaction that I am taking positive step in improving my environment. This gives a happy and joyous signal to my Universe and it goes on in a chain effect to improve the living conditions on this planet. I know that these are only the token things. They are only symbolic things. These will not remove the corruption from the government, they will not improve the traffic jams, they will not reduce the crowd in the local trains. I will certainly need to do something about it. But whether I actually do anything about it or not, I am keeping the fire in me alive by doing the small things mentioned above. These small things does not make me hero. Nobody probably notice them. There is no appreciation from the society for these works. I am not concerned about these. In fact when nobody is likely to notice the good work done by you, it is the best way to do the good work. The reward for such good work is 24 carat gold. There is no ego satisfaction from such work as nobody is there to appreciate your work.

The big work like going on a crusade against corruption makes you hero. Here is the danger of heightened Ego. One may reach the height with constant danger of crashing to the ground. I am not against such endeavors. But they are not for every man. For us, we have to do small, insignificant jobs in the field of social action with little or no appreciation. But we must do them. How to go about it is a different issue altogether. If one is eager to take part in such social action but does not know how to start, he can keep the fire alive by doing the things mentioned above.

I am having an idea of starting an initiative of involving common people in apolitical manner in the non-aggressive social action. It does not include starting a violent protest against the corruption and booking the corrupt officials. It means making mass awareness of these issues and inducing the masses not to be party to corrupt practices. There are many projects which do not require anti-establishment actions. I am particular about these matters as I do not expect Great Sacrifices from a common man. We need to do little things. It is enough. It will keep the fire alive. Those who have a call, can go for bigger actions. The masses can at least do little things instead of committing micro-suicides every day.

Let us make a vow to stop committing micro-suicides. Let us be watchful about these things. Next time somebody else jumps the queue, tell him on his face in a polite and non-aggressive manner. But you must tell him. He may be a bully with menacing face. Do not get scared of him. If he insults you back, you need not take the battle further. You may then ignore him. But you must take the small first step. If you do not then take the second step, it is OK. Do something beyond the normal call of your duty and responsibility. Do little bit. Not great things. But do you must. Be forward moving. There is nothing like staying neutral. If you are not forward moving, you are not static or neutral. You must then be backward moving. You are committing micro-suicides.

This is what I call the true sense of respecting the Life.

प्रस्तुतकर्ता Shrikant @ 11:25 am