There are some secrets we don’t share because they’re embarrassing.
In hindsight, it’s incredible how trivial some of it seems. At the time, though, it was the perfect storm. I include wording like “impossible situation,” which was reflective of my thinking at the time, not objective reality.
I saw my classmates competing, because that’s what they were good at! I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they’re used to competing, and they are used to being number one, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing.
One afternoon, as I’m wandering through a Barnes and Noble with no goal in particular, I chance upon a book about suicide.
The decision was obvious to me. I’d somehow failed, painted myself into this ridiculous corner, wasted a fortune on a school that didn’t care about me, and what would be the point of doing otherwise? To repeat these types of mistakes forever? To be a hopeless burden to myself and my family and friends?
It’s important to mention that, by this point, I was past deciding. The decision was obvious to me. I’d somehow failed, painted myself into this ridiculous corner, wasted a fortune on a school that didn’t care about me, so what would be the point of doing otherwise? To repeat these types of mistakes forever? To be a hopeless burden to myself and my family and friends? The world was better off… What would I ever contribute? Nothing. So the decision was made, and I was in full-on planning mode.
It was only then that I realized something: my death wasn’t just about me. It would completely destroy the lives of those I cared most about. I imagined my mom, who had no part in creating my thesis mess, suffering until her dying day, blaming herself.
The very next week, I decided to take the rest of my “year off” truly off (to hell with the thesis) and focus on physical and mental health. That’s how the entire “sumo” story of the 1999 Chinese Kickboxing (Sanshou) Championships came to be, if you’ve read The 4-Hour Workweek.
Months later, after focusing on my body instead of being trapped in my head, things were much clearer. Everything seemed more manageable. The “hopeless” situation seemed like shitty luck but nothing permanent.
Given the purported jump in “suicidal gestures” at Princeton and its close cousins (Harvard appears to have 2x the national average for undergrad suicides), I hope the administration is taking things seriously.
Perhaps regularly reach out to the entire student body to catch people before they fall? It could be as simple as email.If you’re in a dangerous place, call this number : 1 (800) 273-8255. I didn’t have it, and I wish I had. It’s the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (website and live chat here). It’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in both English and Spanish.
Sometimes, it just takes one conversation with one rational person to stop a horrible irrational decision.
If you’re too embarrassed to admit that, as I was, then you can ping them “just to chat for a few minutes.” Pretend you’re killing time or testing different suicide hotlines for a directory you’re compiling. Whatever works.
Speaking from personal experience, believe me: this too shall pass, whatever it is.
I realized it would destroy other people’s lives. Killing yourself can spiritually kill other people.
Your death is not perfectly isolated. It can destroy a lot, whether your family (who will blame themselves), other loved ones, or simply the law enforcement officers or coroners who have to haul your death mask-wearing carcass out of an apartment or the woods.
A friend once told me that killing yourself is like taking your pain, multiplying it 10x, and giving it to the ones who love you.
If think about killing yourself, imagine yourself wearing a suicide bomber’s vest of explosives and walking into a crowd of innocents. That’s effectively what it is.
Even if you “feel” like no one loves you or cares about you, you are most likely loved – and most definitely lovable and worthy of love.
There’s no guarantee that killing yourself improves things! […] The “afterlife” could be 1,000x worse than life, even at its worst.
I personally believe that consciousness persists after physical death, and it dawned on me that I literally had zero evidence that my death would improve things.
It’s easy to blow things out of proportion, to get lost in the story you tell yourself, and to think that your entire life hinges on one thing you’ll barely remember 5 or 10 years later. That seemingly all-important thing could be a bad grade, getting into college, a relationship, a divorce, getting fired, or a bunch of hecklers on the Internet.
Go to the gym and move for at least 30 minutes. For me, this is 80% of the battle.
If you can’t seem to make yourself happy, do little things to make other people happy. This is a very effective magic trick. Focus on others instead of yourself. Buy coffee for the person behind you in line (I do this a lot), compliment a stranger, volunteer at a soup kitchen, help a classroom on DonorsChoose.org, buy a round of drinks for the line cooks and servers at your favorite restaurant, etc.
The little things have a big emotional payback, and guess what? Chances are, at least one person you make smile is on the front lines with you, quietly battling something nearly identical.
If you don’t care about yourself, make it about other people.
If we let the storms pass and choose to reflect, we come out better than ever.
You have gifts to share with the world. You are not alone. You are not flawed. You are human.
