Media Room

Just Think About How Much Life Really Values

Yesterday morning started with one of those frustrating episodes that I have, ever so often. Commonly, I start the day with a broad outlook, thinking not only about the day ahead but also about where I am at and the future ahead of me. I was also angry because I just couldn’t seem to figure out the answers to the direct cause of that frustration, which is exactly not how I want to start any day. But I couldn’t help but to witness my mind stray from one thought to another.

I figured I needed to redirect my thinking and in so doing, I satisfied my curiosity to my news feed. The first headline I came across was that shocking reminder of what happened 15 years ago. Reading the numbers (2,977 lives lost, including 411 emergency responders) quickly reminded me of how fragile but valuable life is and of how blessed everyone probably is, who can still wake up and complain about another day. Maybe life is or isn’t so virtuous but death scares us all.

I remembered a few days ago, the dismal expression on my English teacher’s face and the silence in the classroom as some of the older students talked about how close the event came to them and how memorable it is, to the point where they could almost always believe that they are still running through the streets of New York City. We had just finished reading the Terminal Check, a very passionate account of a writer/traveler’s trip to other countries, where he is always vetted before entry and his response to the extreme interrogation that he endured when he visited certain countries. This reading was intended to help us grasp the impact that the event has had on our lives, perhaps forever.

This reality highlights the cause of our angst and why we fear each other so much causing us to structure our lives based on how much we trust and value the environment around us.

While introspecting through this mild detachment from my very slow morning, I started thinking about my life and attaching a new value on life itself.
During September we talk a little bit more about suicide awareness and while we are at it, I just think it’s important that we get this simple message across that we all want to live, we all value our lives. People don’t take their lives because they want to die, rather it’s because they believe that they cannot live.

Whatever value we attach to life, sometimes we just need a reminder that there are going to be good and bad days. Training myself to get through a frustrating morning, has become in its own way, a life skill and a very important one because we get to have hundreds of mornings that hundreds of people may have only wished they had.