At the core of the mindset of anyone who committed suicide is the thought of, “why live when we all will still die”?
For this set of people, they’re waiting to die. They are not living life to it’s full depth and dimension. They are waiting out their lives.
However, they were not born that way. They were taught to live that way by the society.
How do we teach people to wait out their life instead of living?
We do that by the message we preach everyday starting from one’s childhood.
From the moment a child becomes 7 years of age and fully conscious of his or her actions and desires, we begin to force that child not live the life he wants but to wait.
First, we tell the child that he cannot play as much as he desires. We force him to sleep or read.
What he really wants to do at that stage of his life is just play, have fun, socialize with true and genuine friends, eat and sleep. We tell him that he can’t do that. He would have to wait. Be patient.
This child doesn’t want to sleep in this hot afternoon. He is too active with excessive reserve of energy unspent but we say no. READ or SLEEP. Take your siesta, etc.
This child keeps waiting till he enters high school and grows up into a teenager. A lot of things are happening to his body. He has various desires and craves real connection.
We move in again. We force him to wait. Instead of guiding him on the best way to go about his natural body desires. We chose to restrain him from expressing them. Instead of teaching them, we start shouting; WHAT DO THEY KNOW?
I do not blame us because we are just doing to them the same thing that was done to us.
At this stage, some of them have very tall dreams. What do we do? We invalidate their dreams and force them to read and concentrate.
Few years ago, Nigerian teenage football players, The Golden Eaglets won the Under17 world cup, Nigerians started shouting that they should be given scholarships to go to school. That they shouldn’t be allowed to forsake their education.
Like go to school and do what?
Well, that’s what teenagers all over the world go through.
They are told to wait. Don’t live, don’t enjoy, don’t experience life, don’t socialize, don’t explore the world. Just wait. The right time will come for you to do all that until you get tired.
A dead man will get tired of sleep. That’s our favorite proverb.
For 18 years of his life, he has postponed living, he was waiting for the right time to live.
Then he enters University. He has met new people, new place, amazing experience. He wants to explore, but he is told to wait. Concentrate on your studies. It’s not yet time to live.
Few years later, he’s done with school. He is free to live now, but he is told that no, he can’t live on his parents money in his parents house. He has to go get a job. So no time to live. He has to wait first. When he gets a job, he can start living.
A short while later, he gets a job. He wants to start living, but he is told that it’s irresponsible of him to live now. Can’t he see that his mates are all married.
Small thing he does, everyone will be shouting, GO AND MARRY.
So he marries and he wants to now live with this beautiful woman he loves so much.
But they tell him it’s irresponsible of him to live without having children. Where did he learn that one from? Or is he hiding his impotency or his wife’s barrenness?
So he has children and wants to live life but here they come again. It’s irresponsible of you to start doing those things you desire when you have kids. The interest of your kids comes first.
So he starts taking care of his kids. This time around, he is not just waiting but exhausted as well.
But gets what? He will start doing to his children the very same thing that was done to him.
Few years later, he is 60+, at the verge of retirement and his children have all gone out. His strength have gone too. Probably some of his teeth followed.
The wait is finally over as he goes home with his retirement benefits and dozens of things he wished he had done but couldn’t do now. Some call it regrets.
The children come home once in a while give him gifts and other goodies, then leave him and his wife to their lonely weak bones.
In developed worlds, they might be sent to care homes or here in Africa, they hire live in Nanny.
What would they be doing, they will be living, WAITING to die, having never truly LIVED.
It sounds like tragedy, but this is the supposed Success story of 99.9% of humans.
When you ask most people what they want out of life, they would simply use nicer words to describe the above scenario.
Take some time to ask yourself, are you truly LIVING or you are just WAITING to die?