my quaint world

Just heard from a friend. He is devastated that 2 of his best friends killed themselves last weekend.

Wow, it pained me so much to receive such news even though I do not know who are the two people but they must have been in a real hellish state that the only way they could seek out is to take their own lives.

There is so much suffering in the world!

But one thing we have to realise (this I read just this morning), that problems and suffering are two separate thingy. When we have problems, doesnt necessarily means we have to suffer. Nevertheless, the separation line is rather thin and more often than not, we tends to be sucked into the realm of own sufferings whenever we encounter problems.

But the book says that suffering is in fact our own inability to overcome the problem. It is not the problem itself but our lack of believe in our own ability.

When we are confident that we can overcome a problem, we call that challenges instead :)

Coming back to the point of conversation, I do feel bad in a way now. Because when my friend was telling me, I kept emphasizing that we should always extend our hands out to people whom we think might need us. My intention is not to make him feel guilty but I truly believe every happenings, we must learn something from it, after all the tears and pains.

Because all this news brought me back to the time when one of my good friend killed himself. In fact all of us knew he has deep deep depression and had attempted suicide before, no one spoke to him and held out to him because its a taboo to talk about dying. We were talking a lot among ourselves but everyone was telling each other, let's not bring it up to him, let's act as if nothing is wrong. But something was clearly wrong and a month later, he hung himself.

Often, I wondered, perhaps I could have made a difference if I had went ahead to sit with him, to listen, to talk, to keep him company, to show him that life has more than the gloomy world he's been drowning in... perhaps perhaps perhaps.

Nevertheless, I've made my vow that I'll never hold back my act of compassion in future, I will give my best care to all and especially more to those that I think needs it.

A couple of years afterthat, someone very close to me attempted suicide. It was indeed heart wrenching. But we were very fortunate that we managed to overcome the whole ordeal together and today's she's a much much stronger person and also dedicated to help others.

So you see, compassion will snowball somehow... keep passing it on...

My prayers to the 2 good friends of my dear friend.