Bad economy and suicide are siemeses. There is an unfortunate link between bad economic outlook and hopelessness among folks. I’m no economist, but I understand that this has been the trend. We saw this during the Great Depression in 1929, the Global Economic Crisis in 2008, and even recently in Nigeria in 2016/17. How they connect is a sad reality of how much of man’s emotional well-being is linked to money. I hope our economists will explain this to us in simple language soon.
Unfortunately, the world economy does not promise a consistent green. There are times it would be red, even as the earth – the world if you will – itself may not get any better as we’re nearing its end, and I’m sorry to disappoint those who’re praying for a better world. If our planet doesn’t throw up situations like volcano, flood, droughts or storms, the bad guys masquerading as governments will. If they don’t, their friends – the terrorists and bandits – would.
So, let’s face it: The world is war, and the best we can do is to seek ways to strengthen ourselves from within through the knowledge of the Word of God and the instructive experiences of those who have gone ahead. We must make haste and keep in mind that whatever comes our way, it is well with our souls.
So, how do we manage the petulian and dandelion interspersions of life? How do we stand the heat that has sworn to always make appearances to the human life, the reggae that would always spoil the blues?
Well, wisdom is to know what will come and brace up for it. I believe that there are sufficient resources within and around us as a people that can, at least, douse the tensions: the sort of thing that a graduate for half a decade is holding on to, the strength that is keeping a young woman whose five-year old relationship has been called off. The list of these life storms is endless.
HOPE: Hope is the reason to stay on living even when there appears to be no evidence to hold on to life. No one should allow pessimism have a place in their psyche. This is why Christ listed Hope as part of the greatest condiments of life. In fact, hope is faithfully loving life. Nothing beats it, because at the fall of man, the zest for living became something to fight for. The hitherto seamless, endless, stressless life ceased to be an autopilot. Since then, living became deliberate.
Make no mistake, living life is now as active as enjoying it. This is perhaps where many victims of suicide have lost it (May their souls rest with the Lord). Unfortunately, still, mankind has refused to heed the advice of a young Philosopher who warned us some two thousand years ago that our lives do not consist in the multitude of our belongings. Our lives, each life, is worth more than the entire world. This is why we are being warned also in Islam that whoever slays an innocent person is as though he has slain the entire world.
It is important to nurture the part of our minds where hope resides before our low moments come. We should begin to place the right worth on our lives by seeing ourselves as the Creator does. Man must sum up all the things he believes should make him happy and tell himself that his lives does not consist in them.
When, therefore, cars, spouses, houses, designers, degrees, and gadgets fail to come or that they had come and have now left – either one by one, or once – there is the capacity to look forward to a brighter day, either on earth or in heaven when the Owner of life demands it Himself.
In the meantime, the Book that says, “Godliness and contentment is great gain” is the Bible. It has all the facts and authority of life and living.
– Oshaloto Joseph Tade, ANIPR.
