Life & Stuffs
Dear suicidal minds
If you are feeling low with suicidal thoughts, read it till the end.
Hey there,
If you are suicidal, for sure your life is going through hell. Unpleasant memories, messed up present, and dark future must be bombarding your minds, questioning your purpose of living, drowning you into a blackhole of despair, emptiness and anxiety, that you feel worthless, hopeless, and helpless, and only door you see to peace is in death, and you can’t wait for the death to come to you, so your mind is compelling you to get to the death on your own. That’s where the suicidal thinking must be coming, right?
Or, maybe nothing as such. Maybe you don’t have as such unpleasant past, nor messed up present or dark future, but some where deep inside, you feel yourself worthless. Purpose of life does not hold any meaning to you anymore. You feel like being a loser or useless that hurts your dignity and ego. You are tired of your near ones complaining about you not being right; or you are tired of trying to fit into the expectation of people around you. Or, you are tired of seeing failures and you don’t want to try anymore. You feel like you are done with your life and you just want to give up. To you, suicide seems the perfect door to exist. Or, maybe you have some other reasons. Whatsoever, all the reasons boil down to one thing, and that is, you want to escape quietly, right?
Whatever may the reason be, you are suicidal, quietly and secretly ,that no one knows yet. I am not here to tell you, “suicide is not the solution.” You already know that. I know you are not looking for a solution. You are looking for an end. So, it does not matter to you. Also, I am not here to tell you, “talk to me” because you believe talk can only give you a short-term relief, but as soon as the talk is over, you will be back to your blackhole with never-ending tunnel to darkness. So, I am not here to ask you to talk to me. You don’t need to. Instead, I will talk to you. Just listen to me through these words.
You know, today I was watching this documentary on human history. It showed how 70 thousand years ago humans escaped from Africa to survive. Some died on the way, and few finally made it to Arabian peninsula. From there, they expanded slowly to Asia to Australia, and to Europe to America. It was amazing to learn how they learned agriculture, and how they learned domestication; how the religions and rituals were born, and how they learned to make tools to survive. It was also fascinating to learn how they learned to tempt river and tempt nature to make the earth their home. Those people were our ancestors. In these 70 thousand years, trillion lives had been born and died, resulting the modern world as we know. In this journey of human history, earthquake, flood, famine, war, plague, disease, accidents have killed billions, just like that. Many had died meaninglessly. Many had died unfairly. But world moved on.
What we can learn from our history is that our life actually holds no meaning in broader sense. It gets the meaning only when we assign a meaning to it.
The other day, I had gone to a funeral of a relative who had died from cancer. I had seen him struggling for a year, bed-bound. Until his last breath, his existence was valued but the moment he died, he became history. Everyone gathered for funeral but soon dispersed as if he never existed.
With all that, what I am trying to say is that we mean nothing to this world as soon as we are gone. What matters to the world is the people that are breathing and living. Look at Yama Buddha. He was Yama Buddha until he was alive. As soon as he is gone, he is just a memory, a story. Everything about him stopped then and there. Just that people moved on.
So if you want to kill yourself, you can do that for sure. One meaningless death which will be forgotten by almost everyone anyway. In another 50 years, those who knew you will be gone as well. For the generation thereafter, you never existed. Does any one remember the people who crossed read sea and made it to Arabian Peninsula? No body. Does anyone remember the millions of armies who had died in world war II? No body. Moment a person dies, his/her chapter is closed. It will be same in your case if you die today.
What we can learn from our history is that life actually holds no meaning in broader perspective. It gets the meaning only when we assign to it.
But think this way. If you die today, you are not going to see next PM of this country or US president. You are not going to see new invention, new technology, new galactic event, new bigger moon happening after 1000 years. You not gonna see next war, next chaos, next celebration. There are full of surprises waiting and you gonna miss all of them. If you die now, world is not going to miss anything. It’s you who gonna miss lot of things.
I understand your life is hard now, but hey! think about those humans escaping from Africa through Sahara desert. Think about the humans that had to survive in ice age. Think about those people from world war. Think about Japanese living in Hiroshima then. I can give you 1000s of stories of struggles and pains. You are not the only one with problem. World is always full of problems. Problem has always been there, problem will be always there because that’s the nature’s way to segregate strong from weak. It’s about going through the problem, facing it, growing through it, and still breathing and moving on. That’s what took we humans from Africa to all over the world.
So I say, you can choose to be a human who chooses to jump off a cliff to end a life instead of walking 1000 miles in search of foods and waters or you can choose to be the human who would take the heat, take the burn, take the flashes and wounds for the foods and waters, but does not give up.
I understand, world today is quite messed up, in sense it is so defined. “You should be like this and be like that.” List of do’s and don’ts is too frustrating to live by. Problem lies in our self constructed idea of how a human should be, as a child, as a sibling, as a spouse, as a citizen, that some people take literally and feel like unfit, manifesting their suicidal thought further. If by any chance, you are feeling anything as such, remember this: There is a saying in Nepali, “marnu bhanda bolaunu jaati” which literally means better be crazy than be dead. So, if you are to choose between ending your life or be crazy, be crazy enough to become egoless, be crazy enough to travel the world, be crazy enough to look for world fighting and surviving, try new invention and discoveries, be crazy enough to leave your parents, loved ones, and everything and detach from the world if they are cause of your sorrow; be crazy enough to pursue your true hobbies and passions. Be crazy and still survive to see the world unfolding right in front of you.
Welcome to life. It sucks but it’s fun.
Life without motivation is a sheer living dead – you are alive but you are just a breathing log with no energy to move on your own. You can’t dream, you can’t plan, you can’t think, you simply can’t do anything that requires effort and intelligence. For a motivation-less person, everything they do is either for a sake of doing or because they are asked to do it. Everyone has at one point in life had been through that state so you know what does it feel like to live a life without motivation.
That’s why we long for motivation every now and then. We long for motivation to subscribe to gym, we long for motivation to dress well, we long for motivation to study, to read, to go out, to almost anything and everything, because in motivation, we move with energy, we bloom, we spark, we feel purposeful, happy and endured. Different people have different source of motivation. For some, motivation comes from desire to take the crush for date. For some, motivation comes from rewards and money. For some, motivation comes from a guarantee of a better future and growth.
Everyone has their own source of motivation. That’s why we all long for the source that motivates us. A desperate single long for a partner to finally get the motivation to stay fit, look good. A confused student longs for an exciting opportunity to pick the books and study. A dull employee longs for a lucrative offer to work hard and give the best and so on. However, those are basically extrinsic motivation. The problem with it we don’t have control over external factors, which means the moment the external factor dries off, you are back to our Zombie state. Think of this. You joined a gym because you wanted to have that hot body to impress your crush but you found out that your crush is getting married to somebody and you never gonna get a chance to even take her out. Will you still have the motivation to go to the gym? Probably not. Or say, you were designing a project to win a promotion but you learned that you are not going to get the promotion. Will you be still working on the project?
Though extrinsic motivation has its own perks, in real world, people generally don’t prefer the kind who can only be motivated by external factors. You must have seen that typical line in every job vacancy. “Looking for a self-motivated individual...” You know why? Because it’s much easier and fun to work with a self-motivated individual than those who can be only motivated through external factors.
Self-motivated means “motivated to do or achieve something because of one’s own enthusiasm or interest, without needing pressure from others.”
My job and work get me to meet lots of people – at home, at office, at streets; in HR table and coffee table. Based on my observation and experience, what I have found in people who lack self-motivation is that:
Those who are not self-motivated have bipolar mood patterns
People who lack self-motivation rely heavily upon external factors to get the excitement and energy hit. For them to function happily and in a cheerful manner, they need to be shown the reward in return for doing the job. The moment the reward promise is not met, they will fall back to despair. This creates huge mood swings exhibiting bipolar mood patterns in them.
Those who are not self-motivated are mostly in sad and low mood
Life is not always full of surprises and rewards. It is mostly mundane routine and uncertain attempts, which means most days are without external motivation. For people who are not self-motivated, most days are gloomy days with no energy or wants and desires, and thus are mostly in a low mood.
They waste their time over unproductive but easy-to-do activities
Whatsoever, they too have the same number of hours and they need to kill it somehow anyway. They do so either by sleeping or scrolling social media for hours or watching videos or gigs for the kick. At work, you can find them wasting their time over unproductive thing if they are not assigned any task, as they can work only under pressure or command; reward or fear.
If no one is watching them, or no pressure or check in place, they live in mess
When they are alone and unwatched, the beast in them gets unleashed. They are now only limited to must-do daily activities. All other activities get on hold. They need visitors to get their house clean and arranged properly. They need social gathering to look great. After all. they can’t function without external motivation.
They don’t put an effort to find answers, research, or learn new things and new ways
Who search for answers? The curious minds. Why some people are curious? Because they see life as an opportunity to explore, understand, and excel. The self-motivated people are a traveler to unknown, whereas those who lack self motivation are traveler to known and certainties. They have no interest to look for answers for sake of knowing. Their psychological construct is as such that they are not here to explore on their own.
In summary
Motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, is the engine that moves us. However, intrinsic motivation is the highest form of motivation because you carry the engine inside you. It’s not that self-motivated people don’t care about rewards. It is just that rewards to them is secondary. Process is what they enjoy. They do it for their own well being, for their own long-term goals and purpose they are driven by. They are here to serve their own life. They maintain their house for themselves and not for visitors. They join gym and stay fit for themselves and not to show others. They take up projects and give their 100% not to please boss hoping for better paycheck but because they want to leave the legacy for themselves. They study not just to crack the exam but to pave their path to being expert on the subject. That’s why it’s fun to be with self motivated people and why they are preferred in job, preferred in relationship or partnership of any kind. You don’t need to constantly feed them motivation and still they do their part.
People lacking self-motivation are trapped between looking depressed but not suffering from depression, acting bipolar but not really bipolar, constantly searching for hits and sparks to find the reason to remain joyful, look normal. For them to function in a healthy manner, they need new set of motivation everyday and it’s tiring and frustrating, whereas for self-motivated people they wake up motivated everyday because they don’t need to search for a motivation. Motivation is always inside them. Self is the motivation enough to put them in shoes and make them run with joy.
Other than lots of sex, it’s like your best friend with you forever.
You have a friend to watch movies together with.
You have a fashion designer to suggest to you what looks good on you. You have a chef to treat you with different tastes.
You have a mirror to see you at your worst and at your best. You have a diary to pour your heart out or express your frustration out from work. You have a lap to lie down when too tired and down.
You have a ride to go for a shopping.
And you have another family and relatives that comes along with your marriage, who love you, like you, respect you unconditionally because now you are part of their family as well.
Basically, after marriage, you always will have someone to count on any activity that makes you happy. Of course, it’s not always rainbow and sunshine. There will be times when you will fight dog and cat, but unlike gf-bf fight, being husband-wife means end of the day, you have to share the bed where after some drama, things will get back to your loving and caring mode. No fight goes beyond 24 hours.
There will also be days where a third person from the family will make things unpleasant, will ruin moods, but you always find a way to deal as a team and get through it like a team.
In all these things, you will grow more; you will feel being ready for your own child to bring to this world. Together, you will start seeing your own house from the future, where you will be having your own junior versions and maybe a dog, just like in the movie. You start becoming more serious about earning, serious about life for the child you plan to bring.
For all that to happen though, you should marry your best friend that you are in love with and vice versa. If you compromise and marry for sake of marrying, you gonna miss all the things mentioned above.
Hey KMAG Readers,
Glad to see you here. Since you are here, don’t forget to drop your email address. We want to surprise you.
Much love and regards,
KMAG
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