Ending your life, is not the End.

Suicides are outgrowing in numbers everyday, facts reveal that every 40 seconds a person dies. Worst being that these numbers will increase to every 20 seconds by 2020. With the ongoing mayhem in the country currently, where people are ending their life in a jiffy, I felt there is a stringent need to reach out to the masses (as much as I can) with this post. Waking up everyday to a newspaper story of someone intentionally ending their life can be debilitating, though we can't even begin to imagine how devastating it could be for the victim and their loved ones. It is so easy to read an article everyday of a young lad ending his life due to failure at exams or a farmer ending his life due to a crop failure. But do you think these reasons are good enough for a man to put an end to his life? Think about it, can a single event effect an individual so much that he doesn't feel like living anymore? I don't think so. Belonging myself to the field of behavioral sciences I've come to realize that it takes a lot to put things to an end. It's not easy to just jump of a cliff or hang yourself up leaving so many life's behind to suffer. A lot is at stake and mind you the individual is aware of it. We all have grown so ruthlessly busy that we have no time to notice the plight of the poor fellow. I am not sure how many of you have watched the celluloid blockbuster 'Tare Zameen Par' and remember the story it's main protagonist (Aamir Khan) told the affected child's (Darsheel Safari) parents that a tree doesn't die within a day. When it dies it still is getting water,sunlight, air, then how do you think it dies? Or as per this logic, can trees ever die then? Oh, yes they can. He narrated a story telling the neglected child's parent's that once upon a time a gardener planted a small sampling, he nurtured it, watered it, looked after it and it grew into a huge tree. But after it grew so big, the gardener thought he should be shifting his work area, as he doesn't have much to offer to the tree anymore because it has grown big enough to be left all by itself. He left, leaving behind no one to take care of it like he did. Trespassers sitting around and hanging around the area near the tree did not possess a great intent. They always seemed to talk negatively of people, things, events or for the matter of fact anything that came there way. So basically they were habitual 'critics' who negated things just without a  valid reason. Foolishly so, they started blaming the tree for their own errands day in and day out. Few days passed and the next day these trespassers visited the same area. They saw that the tree had fallen off. Their hadn't been a storm nor a woodcutter or a natural event that could have caused this.This really intrigued them although they failed to realize the reason for the same. Knowingly or unknowingly the only evident fact I could pick from the story was the constant nagging that the tree was subjected to which led to it's end. If a non living thing can be so sensitively affected by what it is susceptible to then we humans definitely need a reality check. Our busy routines, this competitive stride, this longing to earn money, to be the best, to stand upon societal expectations seems to have overtaken upon our basic need of 'social affiliation', 'acceptance', 'mutual respect' and 'feeling desirable'. The web is full of speculations regarding the youth/farmers/kids/elderly committing suicide, but sadly I nowhere found this simple cause of 'feeling alienated'. Isn't this is a good enough cause for us to understand the reason for increasing suicides? If you think of an individual who ends his life or is about to end his life, try imagining his frame of mind just a second before he jumps of a cliff. It gives me goose flesh! Terrifying as it may seem, it is daunting not only for the individual but for everybody connected to them. The spur of the moment which seems so weak can only be overcome if we have someone to look back to, someone to fall back upon. Even that one string attached can save a life. Be mindful of what is happening around, if someone is in need, if you may lend a hand. It is all around, we just need to be more aware. Don't let a life go too easy, because ending a life is definitely not the end. It may seem so, but it does more harm than good. A phone call, a hello, an 'are you okay?', a 'I need you', a 'You are important' can save millions of lives. Just don't forget to give these strokes to the ones you love, maybe that is just what they needed!