A Slice of Life

Thanks to the passing cloud, the air was filtered of its humidity and it was really balmy and cooling for an evening run!

I ran a reasonable 5km with Jan. This should be a fairly sufficient preparation for our 10km Shape run this coming Sunday. The thought of the initial anxiety, motivating crowd, beads of perspiration signifying hard work and millions of endorphins that are going to be produced simply thrills me to bits! Looking forward to it!

On a contrary and more discrepant note, following is an extract on suicide. Yeah, a slice of life for you to consume today. It's enlightening and nourishing. :)

This world can sometimes be hard to live in, and occasionally, the pain becomes so acute and sources of relief so rare, that one may contemplate ending it all.

If you're having such a thought, don't feel that you're weak or foolish. There is nothing wrong or unusual about the way you feel. Things must be going pretty badly if you're contemplating suicide. But if death has become an option for you, then things can't get any worse. From here, you can rise if you want to. No one has ever solved anything by choosing death. In fact, it's the ones who are faced with the very real prospect of death who discover how valuable and rich life can be.

In Stephen Daldry's film "The Hours", actress Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, a character whose face of a loving, dutiful housewife belies an emotional and romantic emptiness that threatens to engulf her. Unable to live the life she truly wants to live, she is finally driven to the thought of suicide, but decides against it at the eleventh hour. Strangely enough, the option of death gave her the strength to continue living. When she realised that she could always take her life if it got unbearable, suddenly, her life didn't seem so hard. The world of infinite opportunities opened up to her. Fear of life and social expectations no longer gripped her, and she subsequently went on to live the life she always wanted.

In Paulo Coelho's book "Veronika Decides to Die", the protagonist is brought back from the brink of death after she takes a near-fatal dose of sleeping pills. However, the doctor tells her that as a consequence of her action, her heart has been so weakened that it could collapse in a matter of weeks. Faced with the possibility of death like the character of Laura in "The Hours", Veronika experiences a similar epiphany - that death is always possible, for everyone, young or old, happy or depressed.

Death can come to you unexpectedly or you can invite it; either way, it makes life all the more precious and the world all the more beautiful and promising. Suicide is a hasty catapult into the unknown. What you couldn't find here, you can be sure you won't find in death. Life however gives you the opportunity to live it in any way you like. The pain may be unbearable now, but it will not last.

Death comes to us all; the time and place though, is not for us to determine. Till then, choose Life - seize the opportunities that only Life can bring.