Okay, this started as a quote page for my Weekend Wise Words. It grew, I got carried away, so now it's a Friday blog....
The drop in stocks and the world markets have caused many a good deal of consternation. This weekend, we could use not thinking about it. Or thinking about things that are far more enlightening, uplifting and forward looking. Buddha has a few thoughts on that, or if you prefer, Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.:
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Be happy as you can, share that with all as best you can. You reap what you sow.
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” So, don't dwell on the negative.
“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.”
“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” When things seem their worst, look around you, what do you see? Is anyone trying to physically harm you right at that moment? No? Are you in a dangerous environment? No? Can you breathe easily? Yes? Do you have access to what you need to survive the next hour? Yes? The next day? Yes? Then why, are you so stressed out? The future does not exist. It will most likely, but it is right now, doing nothing to you, you are doing something to you. If you are stressed out, anxious, feeling pressures, stop it. Breathe. Calm yourself. Deal with things as they come. Break down what you need to do. Do what you need to do in the order you need to do it. Do the best you can. Then you can relax, knowing you are following a course of action that will be the best you can do. If you do, all will work itself out. If you lose everything, begin again, you have not lost your life, you have lost things. Many times, losing those things are a positive change in your life. Do you really need all these things to survive, to be happy?
That is a knot of stuff up above. Cut yourself free of it. What do you need to cut yourself free of to feel free?
I always said that should I ever feel like committing suicide, I would just leave everything in my life, walk off, and go start elsewhere. Why not? I was going to end my life, right? Why not, "end my life" as I and everyone else knows it, and start a new one, divorced of the life that was literally "killing" me. Even if you have to leave spouse, children, family, friends, responsibilities, etc. I do not, believe one should avoid one's responsibilities. But I do think that if you are at that point, that things are killing you, the obvious choice is to kill that which is killing you (figuratively, unless it is an emminant threat, then perhaps you would need to kill whatever or whoever it is).
When someone kills their family, spouse, children, etc., then commits suicide, this makes no sense, and they have no right to do this. When you consider, that we allow things to get to us, it is our responsibility to deal with ourselves, not others. In that case, perhaps, kill yourself first, then consider killing others. But I would argue, as I do above, to simply... walk away.
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| Hanging from your arms is far healthier than from your neck |
You might also send them a post card to let them know you are okay but you had to leave to start a new life or kill yourself. They will find it damaging, but less damaging than if you actually did kill yourself. And the chance is, one day, you can come back, or they can come visit.
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| Hanging your car is healthier for everyone more than hanging yourself |
As with the stock market crash of 1929, those who leaped from tall buildings to kill themselves, had they only sat still, waited, the market came back up. But by that time, they were dead.
Time passes. Things change. Doing nothing, things change. Doing something, positive, will help things change more positively. But for whom? There are politics involved in choices. Life, is complicated. But in many ways, it doesn't have to be.
Start by smiling. Realize, you can breathe, no matter how things feel at the moment. Take a drink of water. Go for a meditative walk. Or just start walking, leave town, change the channel as my brother used to tell me, make changes, do something novel, it doesn't have to be dangerous or death invoking.
And you may then find, that things are not as bad as they seem. All you have lost are material things. Those who really care for you, who you really care for, will still be there. And if they leave you, because you have lost material things, have you been living your life right? Are they? Perhaps that is Life's way of telling you, you have another chance, before the end, to live your life right.
Go for it. The end, is not always the end. Sometimes, it can be the beginning....
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