Rallyleo,

Listen. Everything Agent120, Beacon-of-Hope, and Asa said is true.

What you think is reality from your High School experience is very, very far from it. Life is so much more than good grades and chasing after some elusive idea of success that is prevalent in High School. There is way too much pressure to make good grades and conform to an arbitrary idea of success and happiness. My experience is I have met many, many people who are very happy when they refused to accept someone else’s ideas of success for them and have followed their own strengths and desires in the direction they want to go. Many of them did poorly in high school but are happier and more successful then those that bought into the whole grades are everything message in high school only to find themselves stuck in profession they hate and wish they could leave. Actually, I have seen so much of this that I want to say it is common place.

I know you think that you are making choices now at 16 that are irreversible, but that is NOT true. I know several people who did not graduate from High School and went on to be hugely successful. Some graduated college and went on to professional schools. Some find something the love to do and do it. Some have much more "street smarts" that make them very successful and never had the skills that make them good students in school. Having said that, all the studies on happiness, and there are many, show that happiness is not based on money, power, or position, but on relationships. Relationships are by far more important. What is funny, and tragic, is that even the most financially successful and educated people have not figured that out. If we spend all our time chasing the first three we are wasting our time.

If your current friends and family have all bought into the idea that happiness is in grades and professional school they are wrong and you may want to slowly find other social groups to belong to.

Your situation may seem to be without hope and that all your choices carry the weight of the world on them, but life is not so. Everyone fails, it is part of life. To pick yourself back up is also one of the greatest attributes of the people who are happiest and had the greatest impact on our world.

I found the career I am in now late like Asa and I am very happy in it. I had friends that are Doctors and Lawyers and I see that having that position does not make them happy. I felt the same things you do in High School and I can say with 100% confidence that, although it feels very different, High School life is NOT reality. It is not even close to it. Don’t think all your choices carry such a heavy weight. It is paralyzing.

Remember, friends are more important than financial or professional success and failure is a good thing.

-----------------------------
"In all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance. It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor." Brent Curtis

I haven't found any sort of hobby just yet, but I've really wanted to get into some part of the medical field. More than anything, I want to go to college with my best friend because we both want to be anethesiologists.
My family is really really strict about grades and stuff. I've been able to conceal my GPA from them this whole year but they'll find out about it in a month or so. I don't want my dad to kick me out.

I think high school really does decide the rest of your life. I want more than anything to succeed, and I want to go to college right away. The college here won't accept me because of my GPA, that is if I pass high school.
Passing high school is important for me because it's just one of those big accomplishments in life. It's embarassing to feel like an idiot all the time. I'm pressured by everyone to make good grades, and I still can't do it.

What bugs me the most is not the fact that I don't have good grades, it's the fact that I try and still don't get them.
Like I said, I don't have much of a self-esteem, and just that alone makes me feel like an idiot all the time. It also is probably why I think I won't "succeed" without a good GPA or diploma.

Also, the fact that all my friends are geniuses doesn't help me feel better in the slightest bit.

I know high school life isn't reality.
I just want a good life. I don't want to be considered a "loser" because of my bad GPA. I at least have enough self respect to say that label doesn't suit me at all.

It's hard for me to believe what you guys are saying; that there is a chance to find a good paying career even if you don't pass high school. Maybe I've been brainwashed by my family, friends, school and everything else. i wouldn't know.

[This message was edited by rallyleo on 05-17-08 at 05:02 PM.]

quote:

---

Listen. Everything Agent120, Beacon-of-Hope, and Asa said is true.

---

Indeed they are correct and don't forget yourself eagleandchild. Rallyleo, these are some wise people and I hope you heed their advice.

Life has so much more for you and it can offer it to you, but at the same time you need to reach for it.

quote:

---

I think high school really does decide the rest of your life.

---

Hardly, just about everyone who replied to your message has already graduated. So trust them.

quote:

---

It's embarassing to feel like an idiot all the time. I'm pressured by everyone to make good grades, and I still can't do it.

---

You can always try again.. It's a hard step, but it's not failer if you try again and learn form it.

quote:

---

just that alone makes me feel like an idiot all the time.

---

When you got a mind that thinks like this, it really don't help at all.

quote:

---

Also, the fact that all my friends are geniuses doesn't help me feel better in the slightest bit.

---

Why must you be a genius to be a friend with a smart man/woman?

quote:

---

I know high school life isn't reality.

---

Oh, it's reality buddy, but a different kind of reality.

quote:

---

I just want a good life. I don't want to be considered a "loser" because of my bad GPA. I at least have enough self respect to say that label doesn't suit me at all.

---

How you live, treat, and judge others is how you are judged. Not by how smart you are, but by those who were touched by you. In bad way or a good way.

quote:

---

It's hard for me to believe what you guys are saying; that there is a chance to find a good paying career even if you don't pass high school. Maybe I've been brainwashed by my family, friends, school and everything else. i wouldn't know.

---

It's never easy to make a living and no matter how much money you have or you make becuase there will always be problems with your career. Those who don't attend college just make a different kind of living than those who have attended college, but there is nothing wrong with that kind of living.


"If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue with me, correct me - but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way." -Roger Ebert

Well it helps a person to be called "intelligent" every once in a while.

quote:

---

It's never easy to make a living and no matter how much money you have or you make becuase there will always be problems with your career. Those who don't attend college just make a different kind of living than those who have attended college, but there is nothing wrong with that kind of living.

---

But what type of living is that? Right now, although I don't know much about it, I want the kind of living that comes from college. Both to make my parents happy and also keep my self esteem up.

This summer (which starts on the 21st for me), I decided months ago to work on my esteem issues just to keep these suicidal thoughts out of my head. I have more insecurities than I care to mention. Maybe by August I'll have some of this behind me.
But the high school problem still comes to mind. My counselor is an incompetent joke and hasn't answered my requests to see her for some sort of summer school.
With summer school and even (if summer school isn't enough) a semester of night school should get me caught up completely as long as I don't fail anything my senior year.

I'm not by any means "giving up"... yet.
You all have made me a bit more confident in a "better tomorrow", but I need to get though high school.
I can't let down my parents or myself, and I want to keep up with my friends.

quote:

---

Why must you be a genius to be a friend with a smart man/woman?

---

Not a genius, but it's just how I am. I don't want to feel so inferior to all my peers, including my friends, like I do now. I'm not saying that I have to have a 3.5 - 4.0GPA, but I just want to feel like I'm on the same level as everyone else, not below them if that makes any sense.

quote:

---

But what type of living is that? Right now, although I don't know much about it, I want the kind of living that comes from college. Both to make my parents happy and also keep my self esteem up.

This summer (which starts on the 21st for me), I decided months ago to work on my esteem issues just to keep these suicidal thoughts out of my head. I have more insecurities than I care to mention. Maybe by August I'll have some of this behind me.
But the high school problem still comes to mind. My counselor is an incompetent joke and hasn't answered my requests to see her for some sort of summer school.
With summer school and even (if summer school isn't enough) a semester of night school should get me caught up completely as long as I don't fail anything my senior year.

I'm not by any means "giving up"... yet.
You all have made me a bit more confident in a "better tomorrow", but I need to get though high school.
I can't let down my parents or myself, and I want to keep up with my friends.

---

If this is where you stand then you have not failed... Remember that.


"If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue with me, correct me - but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way." -Roger Ebert

This may just be my opinion, but I think the whole idea of inferiority being a certain and discernible thing is ridiculous. Who has the right to say who is better than someone else? I think you feel bad about yourself because you are focusing on all the wrong things. Step outside what everyone else expects of you and just live for yourself, you'll be a lot happier.

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." -Aeschylus

Like I said, these are some smart people.. You are indeed correct Agentk120..


"If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue with me, correct me - but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way." -Roger Ebert

quote:

---

This may just be my opinion, but I think the whole idea of inferiority being a certain and discernible thing is ridiculous. Who has the right to say who is better than someone else? I think you feel bad about yourself because you are focusing on all the wrong things. Step outside what everyone else expects of you and just live for yourself, you'll be a lot happier.

---

Well like I said, I'm going to try working on the self esteem issues over the next couple of months. I already know that I care too much about what other people think, so I'll try to change that.

Here is a book you may like.

http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books_9780446581158.htm

-----------------------------
"In all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance. It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor." Brent Curtis

quote:

---

Well like I said, I'm going to try working on the self esteem issues over the next couple of months. I already know that I care too much about what other people think, so I'll try to change that.

---

Good. It'll be hard. It is a lot easier to seek guidance in your life from popular opinion than to make your own way, but it isn't better. Swimming alone at sea can be scary, but if you keep trying to change that it'll be better.

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." -Aeschylus

quote:

Originally posted by eagleandchild:
Rallyleo,

Remember, friends are more important than financial or professional success and failure is a good thing.

I think the most important thing in life is to wake up every morning smiling. Smiling because you love going to your job, you enjoy your work. I am preparing now to became an actor. Of course everyone was against it. Being an actor is difficult. Having an acting career means more than work and sacrifice. But I feel good, and I am not scared of what might come. It’s my own duty to follow my dreams, or at least try to. I am doing my best to keep it on. I am using my own forces, and I am not trying to take advantage of any fake college degree scam, like other people do. And I didn’t graduate college, and neither high school, but I don’t think this does make me stupid. Maybe just less informed.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ananya,

Ok, I skipped to the end of the debate to see where the original topic ended up. Looks to me like we have slid slightly off topic over 5 pages of comments, not surprisingly.

I guess I just wanted to write my opinion, and then I'll let you get back to whatever you're discussing now.

I think what struck me most as read through the arguements both for and against an individuals right to choose their own destiny or rather the right to terminate that destiny, was how everyone made so many assumptions.

It was written on more than one occasion that suicide was a selfish act that harmed your loved ones left behind. This is a huge assumption, for example, I have family, but would I call the loved ones? No. I have ppl that ask me for a light on the street that I feel closer to than these people. At least the person on the street talked to me, and responded when I talked to them. Can't really say the same for my family.

Second is the assumption that given enough time, things will work out. Ever entertain the thought that given enough time, things will get worse?

Sometimes, and I think it's more common than ppl want to admit, but there are those who are simply ill fitted and equipped to handle what life has become. There are those who simply either don't agree with it, nor care to want to 'fit in'.

To put it simply, if you offered to sell me this life, I would say it's too expensive.

Is this depression? No, as I have been diagnosed depressed, took the happy pills, lined someones pockets in some pharmasudical company, and then continued to feel this way.

Sure, there are little things I would miss about life. Like that first cup of coffee, music, sex I guess (when I had it, I remember it being good...lol). But none of these things are worth sticking around for.

So, in summary. Yes, I wish I could order a suicide pill, and a jd to wash it down with in the same breath. Now that would be life.

I'm 100% with you, Pavlov! There is nothing wrong - and nothing necessarily irrational - about arriving at the decision to end one's own (notice how I worded that?) life. I too am frustrated that there is no readily available suicide pill available.

What's more is that I am frustrated with the fact that, almost invariably, other people utterly fail to respect such a decision. People seem to always want to (need to?) moralize about how life is precious, that you have no right to bring your unhappy life to a close, and that you consequently MUST be less-than-capable of rational thought if you entertain any sort of serious ideas about solving your problem in the manner that you see fit.

When life is not working AND you have tried everything in your power to resolve such (of course, the anti-suicide camp will insist that this is not the case, as if they know), then the proper thing to do is to exit. This is no different than getting a divorce when a marriage is clearly not working and/or quitting a job when it is apparent that it holds no further benefit for you.

Any ideas opposed to what I have just stated are tantamount to stating that other people have the right to force you to go on living in a life that you no longer want. Hogwash!!! A self administered death is a fundamental right, so please stop the moralizing and the rationalizing about how irrational suicide is.

There seem to be two sides to this issue. One is the selfish and easy way out and the other is the consequences of such a decision. If someone is single, has no friends and family, maybe just maybe this argument would stand. What about those people who leave their spouses and children, for example. Unanswered questions and guilt is what's left. When I went looking for criminal justice colleges, I looked for programs that would shed some light on suicide and at the very least I learned that suicide affects everyone and not only the person that's going to commit it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ananya,

I have been reading through some of the posts on this thread with great interest. So, thought I would add a few comments of my own.

Firstly, I don’t think I could ever judge someone who chose to take their own life, in whatever fashion that happened to be. i.e. pills, ropes, car fumes whatever. I think it’s a decision for the individual concerned after a lot of thought has gone into it. It is normally after a prolonged period of clinical depression, which they may already have a history of. Many people suffer from clinical depression who do not take their own lives. But, for others there is the feeling of utter isolation and hopelessness for whatever reasons and for these individuals suicide seems to best way out.

I do not hold with the opinion that this is, [as I’ve often heard mentioned] the coward’s way out, indeed, the manner in which some have chosen to end their lives, to me would seem to be the act of someone quite brave – I won’t go into the various ways of doing so that I have encountered.

What I will say, and apologize if this has already been mentioned, is that the utter desperation and helplessness of those left behind lives with them for the rest of their lives. This is particularly so with close family members who wished they could have ‘seen it coming’ or who feel they should have been able to do something to prevent it.

One thing I know is that when a person is determined to end their own life, nothing and no-one will prevent them from doing so, they will ultimately find a way.

It has often be said that in the days leading up to a suicide, family members have noticed in the case of someone who has been deeply depressed, that their spirits seemed to lift, and that the person concerned seemed almost to be coming out of the depression. This is actually a false sense of security that these family members have experienced, the fact of the matter is that the person who is about to commit suicide actually feels uplifted because he/she has made up their minds, and even worked out the means by which they will end their life – hence the perception by those close by, that ‘are getting better’.

A psychiatrist may be able to explain this far better than I, as I am basing my observations on 3 people I directly knew who had committed suicide, and the utter devastation it caused immediate family members. These families still feel a sense of guilt, which is very sad because in actuality they could have done nothing to prevent it.

quote:

Originally posted by Pavlov'sDog:
You wrote >>>Depression is an illness, one that totally screws around with your perceptions of the world and yourself.<<<

Depression is an illness. And allowing a clinically depressed person to commit suicide is not right. They do not have the capacity to make a rational decision.

My post is in regard to unhappiness. Being unhappy is not an illness. Many rational minded people are unhappy and do not wish to live. They have the capacity to evaluate their lives and decide whether or not they want to live it. If they choose to die, they should have an easier option than jumping off a bridge or hanging themselves.

Hanging yourself is very painless. It feels the same as being choked out, except the blood will not return to your brain.

I don't know where people get this idea that asphyxiation and drowning is painless. It is actually very painful. There are all these odd burning sensations and whatnot. Look it up sometime.

Greetings debaters.
I would like to start by saying this debate is quite old. I do not know how many of the current writers have noticed, but the first three pages of this debate contain content from 2001. I do not therefore expect to receive answers or further posts from those who regionally stated this topic.

Second, addressing Rallyleo, I would have this to say to you. Do not seek to justify suicide because of a current short lived anxiety. While your high school academic crisis, I am sure is quite compelling, it is not indeed the measuring stick by which life is determined. Research the life of Nikolia Tesla. This was a genius who did very well in school. However died living by very humble means. There are many wealthy people who have achieved their status without so much as a high school diploma.
I am not saying give up on high school, it is certainly more likely that you will achieve success with a diploma, than without, however you should not give up on life simply because such an affair as high school has gone wrong.

Now getting back to the debate on hand. I have myself actually registered this screen name for the sole purpose of posting this post in this thread. I have noticed that most of the original debate is gone, rightly so as it was over 8 year ago that the first posts were created.

I found this topic while searching google.com. I encourage everyone here to read wikipidias document on 'suicide' the very definition of the word as well as some of its uses in society can bring some celerity.

I would like to point out that this debate was not originally started as a cry for help, or an open forum to post a desire to kill one self or a debate against the merit of killing on self. The argument is simple. Should suicide, from the point of society, be legal or not. As members of a free society should we have the freedom to choose to end our own lives?

I would submit this. True freedom would include such freedom. However none of us live in a world, nor do we want to, were members of society indeed have true freedom. Our government, the one we, our ancestors created, indeed exists to protect us all from ourselves, in the sense that it exists to protect those who are meek and law abiding from being ravaged and abused by those who are savage often times stronger.

This is the purpose of our laws, to protect our people, both physically and economically from one another. We have already passed and uphold many laws that state one does not have freedom of their own body. You are not allowed to smoke cocaine. Even possession of the mere tools to create methamphetamine in may of its forms is prohibited. This is because the potential for destruction is greater than the potential for construction.

Suicide, I do not beleive, falls under any one of these jurisdictions. Suicide, while adversely affecting the mental state of other around you, legally only truly infringes on the rights of the victim. If I become a crack addict, likely I will leech off of welfare, be taken to theft or violence towards other in order to support my addiction. If I kill myself, I will do none of the above. How therefore can my act of suicide legally infringe on another persons freedoms or legal rights? It maybe argued that it is criminal for someone who had direct legal dependents to seek suicide, as the abortion of the parent would leave the burden of the sired on the backs of society.

Human beings are not grater than those portions of the animal kingdom we do not like to compare ourselves to. Genetically, at our base, most instinctual core is the drive to spread our dna into the pool and continue to propagate not only our species, but our specific genetic contribution to the species. Some of us will of course be better equipped for that than others.

This genetic drive within human beings is a very distinct part of the 'pursuit of happiness' human beings, both male and female, psychologically judge their own self worth by the value of the partner/partners that they are able to attract to themselves.

This is proven in the idea that there is not one of you(us) who does not feel more or less valuable based on the man/woman they are able to enter or leave a social gathering with. There is not one of you(us) who does not feel less valued than when they go to such a social gathering with high expectations, and indeed fail to gather unto themselves any one prospective 'date'.

This is part of the reason why I support that logically, suicide should be legal. It is the scientific and logical end to a struggle in life that some good number of us will fail to succeed in. No amount of material wealth nor philosophical contribution to society will bring one tenth the 'happiness' that finding 'love' brings. There are a good number of us out there who, though experience have learned that finding such love is either not an option, or such an improbable one that it is in truth not worth the cost of continuing to search for.
This is where several of these posts in which the argument 'has nothing to offer' stem from. A feeling of loneliness or aloofness and inadequacy that is accompanied by the repetitive cycle though which one fails to find 'romance'.
With more than 5 billion people on a planet which is swiftly dwindling on resources, it simply does not make any sense to force people to continue to live who no longer wish to. For many of you there is this 'sanctity of life' response.
I assure you this sanctity of life response has been honed into by the presumptions media. Suicide is a billion dollar a year business. Modern psychology has taken to treating the symptomless of many diseases, rather than curing the problem. There is no money in the cure, ask the man who cured polio. There is however many billions of dollars to be made in treating the symptoms endlessly.

In modern psychology the first thing that is done the moment a person mentions the word suicide is to lock them away somewhere safe, then begin the process of giving them happy pills and other addictive opiate contrived 'legal' medication which will make them feel 'happy' in a hollow sort of way for a short portion of time.

There is actually no standard by which our modern psychological practice peruses active therapy to teach someone the mental tools to get what that want in life to actually be fulfilled and truly be happy. Instead the practice is to continue to make such people dependent on these drugs.
If we are not going to give people the tools to make themselves happy, which we are certainly not, that would be bad business, then why should it be illegal for them to end their own lives?

I submit that there is no need that a full quarter of the first worlds adult population 'needs' to be on some sort of drug the stabilize their brain chemistry. To support such a theory is to in fact say that we have failed genetically as a species.
To such ends, the genetically correct solution for the species would be to let these chemically 'disabled' portions of the gene pool die off, as they naturally want to do, so as to be unable to effect the rest of the species negatively. Apparently the desire to commit suicide is in some way linked to genetics and mental disease. Therefore, from a scientific point of view, the resulting 'desire to die' is in fact the species way of dealing with the genetically inferior, causing them to instinctively remove themselves from the gene pool before it is too late.

I know I seem to be very negative in this post. I am not such a cruel or compassionate person. I simple believe that by both scientific logic and matters of civil liberty it is counter productive to impose sanctions on suicide.

If it must be said, I am indeed suicidal and sympathetic to others who have constant, long term, earnest sucidical desiers.

I do not beleive it should be easily achieved or lawful for minors to commit such acts, parents to allow minors to commit such acts. I do not also consider that it should be lawful to commit or attempt suicide under the influence, or while suffering any other condition that it maybe unlawful to operate a motor vehicle, such as extreme emotional distress. Suicide under these conditions should continue to be campaigned against.

I am however not irrational. I plan on commuting suicide, in approximately 16 years. Currently, I am at a stage in my life where there are others who are finally defendant on me. When this is no longer the case, I plan on freeing myself from the burden of awakening alone every morning, going to sleep alone every night, and knowing that no matter how I try, no matter what I do or have done, this will always be the case. I simply do not like being alone.

Should I at some time before this time frame has elapsed find a person with which is both attracted to me and myself to them in order to share my life and old age with, I would perhaps reconsider. However as things stand I see no purpose on containing to struggle daily with the nagging anger in my mind from the feeling of inferiority and the anxiety that comes from being alone and unable to alter that situation.

I do not consider this decision to be a wholly selfish act, not so much as the decision to force me to live would be. Regardless as to weather it is by my own hands or by the random arm of chaos that my life one day ends, inevitably one day I will die. My children will be forced to go though the 'trauma' of loosing a father, and they will be both sound enough of mind and body on that day to realize that death is a natural part of life, the last part. I simply beleive that I and all other sound minded individuals should have a right to choose weather or not they wish to wait to die, or would be better served to end it now without having to wait so long in line.
I also see no gain for the world in my continuing to suck air, eat food, and consume our fleeting resources once my duty to my offspring has been completed. Nor do I see who logically this burden should be imposed on others. When my father kills himself as his old age sets in, (which he has requested I do if he is ever in such a state to be unable to do for himself) I will respect his right to have done so.
I say this because I love my father and respect him, and would certainly never wish for any one to ever view him in a light that is less that one which he would want to be viewed in himself. If a man can not live with pride, then he should not be suffred to live.
I also beleive that there is more dignity in taking your own life, by any means, than ever being dependent on any of your progeny, or anyone else, to change your diaper and remember your meal times.

YRS I AGREE!

I completely agree with above post..I would like to say that suicide is not a solution of any problem.