Life - choose it please

A an aquantence of mine...No a friend- by the name of Geoff Thompson wrote this the other day. Geoff is from the UK. It's funny how life events will affect people the same way, no matter where we live. Guess people are just people...Well, both Geoff and I have had some losses in our lives. Oft times, you cannot find the words of what you wish you could have said to those precious few nor get your arms around how you feel. I think he found those words below... please enjoy.

The Buddha said that life is suffering. He recommended that we accept this as fact because by embracing discomfort we become comfortable with it, then and only then will the discomfort dissipate.

And yet all around us we witness people from all walks of lifedoing the mirror opposite, each searching (and prepared to pay handsomely for) the cure-all to life's ills; junk TV,fast-food, fast-cars, fast drugs and faster-fame. Others, cornered and terrified by their own suffering, choose the ultimate panacea; suicide. There are even websites set up to celebrate the trend, suggesting instruction in the best ways to swap the incarnate for the ethereal, even proffering friends to share the journey (like some hideous coach trip) to that distant shore. Some people of late have even suggested that this methodof do-it-your-self departure is brave!

Lost, maybe, very sad, certainly, mentally unhinged, probably,you could even argue that it is a very selfish act. But brave!

Several of my friends have brought a premature and violent stop to their earthly sojourn, one with a length of rope strung from a garage beam, another killed himself over a long period of time with cheap sherry and a third with a cocktail of illegal drugs and a farewell note that left confusion and pain in its midst.

I mourn them all and I judge them not, but I have to tell youthat when the bad news arrived my first thought was not that they were brave. To badge a suicide with the label of courage is perhaps to add licence and purpose to its employ, it'd probably even act as an advertising banner for the vulnerable, the easily led and the want-to-be-convinced. Suffering scalds, and suicide is oft used as a desperate balm, but should we really label this act as courageous and its advocates fearless?

From my own experience of life, as a man that has been around afew corners and glanced more than once (however fleetingly) at my own mortality (violence, illness, deep depression) the word fearless does not really exist, only an understanding of and mastery over the biological process of anxiety, adrenalin and depression. And the word courage is certainly not raised for those who choose an early exit by their own hand, rather it is reserved for those who join the poet Rumi's army of night travellers and go out into the dark to hunt down their fears.

Courage after all is not the absence of fear, rather it is that we act in spite of it. People it would appear see suffering as the anathema and medication and evasion as its cure. Certainly there are times when you hit such a low point that all you can do is medicate and evade, it is for some a survival imperative, but in the long term, certainly from my experience (and I have had a life-time of marinating in the sediment of discomfort ) I have found the opposite to be true. It is by engaging our fears, facing our depressions and leaning into life's sharp edges that we are able to free ourselves from its clutches. This is where valour lies. This is where courage can flex its muscles and strengthen its sinews. And it can be very intoxicating. I love the idea of using the discomfort of life as a vehicle for self control and ultimately freedom. I have found great wisdom in my own suffering; it is the body's way of letting us know that something is amiss. It might be telling us that we are in the wrong job, the wrong relationship or the wrong life. It might be simply letting us know that we are pushing too hard or perhaps not pushing hard enough. Often our suffering is simply the pain of death and re-birth, as we exit the spent reality that we currently inhabit a job, a relationship, a town, a country, a paradigm we are birthed through the womb of pain that separates it from the new reality we wish to join. When leaving one reality for another we experience a death and a birth. Bothof which are associated with pain. Understanding this can really help us to cope when pain knocks our door dressed as the bailiffof change.

Whatever the cause, I have found that if we are prepared to turn into suffering and take an honest and sober inventory of our life, suffering can become a liberating force. Folk (myself included) are guilty of running to escape their pain when oftenthe exit they require is in the very pain they flee. All growth takes place in the crucible of discomfort - if you are prepared to stay there for long enough.

If we truly wish to be warriors we need to step up and take onthe bigger challenges, the most immediate of which exist in the present moment. The battles of yesteryear are ancient history and future shadows have no existence outside of unschooled imagination. And for those struggling with present demons the here-after probably holds less terror than the here-and-now, so they choose death as their repair because death is the lesser nemesis. I do not doubt that it takes courage to end your own life, death is seen as the ultimate unknown, but is it a lesser courage than that needed to live on when one's life feels like needless torture? This reality after all is just as uncertain and unknown and the one we embrace in death. And if ending this incarnation feels easier than living it out, then I am with the Buddha who said that life is suffering and that only by embracing discomfort will we find true enlightenment.

So with this in mind I say that when life offers you choice why not be really brave, be a warrior, step up; ask for help if you need it, it is always there, take medication if it is the temporary crutch you need, go to counselling, run a marathon if it helps but please, please, please - choose life.

Be well.

Geoff Thompson - January 2008