by Wayne Leon Learmond

Created on: September 12, 2010

Suicide is such a selfish act. Selfish in the way that it leaves those who are left behind bereft. Yet for the person who ends their own life, they are not thinking about others. Events happen in life that can overwhelm us to the point where we do not know the direction we are going anymore.

Indeed, our minds darken, as all light is extinguished. No hope, no future, no life. In fact, we tire of life, and wish to end it all. Thinking only of death and the grave, circumstance dictates that we simply cannot go on any further in a life that we do not care about. However selfish an act this may seem to those on the outside, each person has the right to live...or to take their own life, as the case may be.

We may shout and scream at the person, try to get them to see sense, try to put positive thoughts within their minds. And, also try to give them hope for the future, but when somebody has their mind set on ending it all, do we have the right to judge them? Suicide is one of the most personal acts that a man or woman can perform. Within society, especially today, where the pressure to keep a roof over our heads, and to earn a wage, look a certain way, act a certain way, is never-ending and constant.

It is exactly because of such pressure that some people snap. Why should this be the case? The one thing that we all have control over, is the control over whether we live or not. Indeed, society seems to control every aspect of our lives, from the moment we are born. We are packaged, numbered, and put in 'our places' where we should be.

We are statistics, with no identity, and no name, and we are herded like sheep, blindly following each other. Life becomes pressurised, mundane, and becomes a life with no hope to be found. We allow those who are in authority to stamp us, watch us, and profile us into folders of race, gender, religion and nationality. We become less of an individual, expecting to show the traits of whatever race, religion or gender we were born into.

People are not looked upon as 'individuals' anymore, and society has become akin to the George Orwell novel,1984. This was a story in which all individual thought was taken away, all human rights stripped as we became nothing but empty shells. This is how society today has shaped most people. Indeed, it is exactly how most people feel.

But the thing that society cannot take from people is their personal right to end it all. People still have that power at least, to decide for themselves whether they want to live

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