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Being Forced to Give It Up

Teenage Suicide

Jinjin

 The cases of teenager』s suicide could be heard regularly in the recent news. According to the news reports, most of the suicides kill themselves to escape the pressure in their lives.  However, it seems to me that this is an unforgivable guilt committed by the weakling who failed to accept the challenge in his/her life.  Intentionally or unwillingly, the act of suicide would harm oneself as well as others

 It is unlikely that there is a suicide in which no one is harmed.  G.K.Chesterton, a writer in Holland once wrote, 「The man who kills a man, kills a man.  The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world.」  Indeed, the man who harms himself harms others successfully.  And it is very unfair for the other men who are harmed are mostly innocent. 

In the case of suicides, the most injured victim would be the parents who love their children very much.  When a suicide is committed, the parents would not only suffer the major emotional upset of losing a child, but also feel great remorse that they have failed to help their child when he/she was in need.  What』s worse, these feelings would never end if the suicide ends in death, since the person who could redeem them has died. 

Then, the suicide』s sibling and friends would be the other victims.  They might feel upset at losing a companion on the journey through life.  And this news might be a terrible shock to them, and might have a profound effect on their lives—the suicide has proved to them that life could be given up easily.  Even a passer-by would get hurt when he/she becomes unwittingly involved in the suicide』s self-destructive acts.  I have heard of a case like this: a person discovered his roommate』s body hanging in their room when he came back from school—this has caused him to have recurrent nightmares, and he didn』t dare to sleep alone for ten years!

 Perhaps most of the men who commit suicide might claim that they were forced to do so—they live under strong pressure, they are extremely unhappy, etc.—their life is like a faulty performance and could only be erased through a suicide.  However, lives are filled with possibilities and choices.  Everything would be all right if you persist spite of the difficulties—for a day, two days or three days.  Of course, it is easier to give up than to persist.  When giving up, we are not only giving up what we intend to give up, but also relieving the suffering that we are enduring.   Nevertheless, it is the persistence of many great men in their lives that makes life all the more beautiful.

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