Log #7 What Makes Our Life Worth Living

Losing the purpose of life is one thing. But suicide is another whole thing. 

Remember the phrase that says "the value of a thing will greatly increase the moment we lost the thing? Apparently, this applies to almost every one of us. This fact had made me pondered for as much as I could remember and started to question myself a lot. Such as how could we appreciate our life without having the need to encounter such a loss? How do we be grateful for everything before anything undesirable happen and make us think "Oh I wish,," -- before everything is too late to be reversed. I think the answer to this is closely related to how we view and how we live. By setting our attitude to appreciate everything and to live in the moment will change our entire world. Of course, it is very hard to have such determination and motivation and this is why the percentage of less happy people in the world were are overflowing. But if you manage to have this attitude applies to your daily life, you will understand the feeling that only you could understand. 

So in relation to this "life appreciation" I would like to share a story of my friend, and a book- When Breath becomes air.

To be honest, I never really know this one friend of mine. we just happen to be in the same summer school for the whole 2 months but never talked to one another (We were both from Indonesia). The first news I have heard from her after 2 years, was her attempting suicide. After a lot of stories from her friends and her status update in social media, I finally found out that she had been suffering from severe depression and chronic insomnia. I could somehow relate myself to her since I also suffer from a mild depression. She said she got bullied by some girls in her current university. She also had a problem accepting her appearance which led her into the embracement of depression. She had planned for a suicidal thought for a very long time inside her mind, and just one night, she built up her courage and swallowed all of her prescription pills. Fortunately, dying from overdosing were not very effective for her. (she survived and undergone gastric suction). Nobody could be sure whether she would not try to do this attempt again in the near future, but through this experience, she realized that there were still a lot of people who care for her, and it is her right to be alive. 

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

 

The reason I chose this book was because of the low-tide I was feeling at that time and I came across this book with a depressing title and cover. I was hoping that I could attain, even just a bit, ray of hopes and motivation from the story. 

Indeed as the title, you could guess that the main character died at the end of the story (oh how I love this kind of ending). But the shocking fact is that the main character in the story was no other than the author himself. He wrote this books in the awareness that he was going to die soon. (He never finish the book :()

For brief information, the author used to major in English literature and human biology. He later finished his master in history and philosophy of medicine and continued to enter medical school and became an outstanding neurosurgeon. 

the author had spent his entire life chasing his dream and building potential, the potential that would later go unrealized. Until one day of his mid-30s, he was diagnosed with a stage-four lung cancer. I still remember his regret. "from all the time, when I finally ready to do an amazing thing to the world, I had cancer". 

During his several years battling cancer, he was searching for the answer of "what makes life worth living". He also said, "You have to figure out what is most important to you". In his case, he was faced with a dilemma whether to give up on his neurosurgeon title or became a writer instead. He never know how long does he have. 3 years then he will be a writer, 10 years and he will spend 7 years as surgeon and rest as a writer. But unfortunately, Life isn't something we could make a prediction of. Sometimes, when we are about to lose everything, we started to feel that everything are important to us. There are still a lot of things we want to do. and we wish we would have more opportunity to be living in this world,  as a healthy person, doing everything we like, and appreciate all we have when we still have the ability to appreciate. 

"Because I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living"