One of the saddest things about life is finding out that someone so close to you fell off the way. They might have got an addiction to drugs or something else to numb the pain of inside. We lose some to suicide, depression, others just struggle to exist and see each day go by. We say to ourselves, “But I have always been here for you.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Well, why didn’t they say anything?
I used to think the goal of life was happiness. Seeing your people happy, seeing them thrive and spending time together. Listening to each other, helping them out emotionally, mentally and filling in the gap for them whenever they are short. Is it though? Why do we wait until we can no longer do anything for them to say, “I was here all along and she never said anything?” “He was a nice person that shouldn’t have happened to him.”
Listening to the lyrics of the song How to save a life by the Fray gets me to a mental wanderlust. I wonder about how many people wanted to talk but didn’t have faith in humanity. How many people needed someone to just say, “I understand”. How many lives would have been saved if we were not so conceited and cared only about being better than them, making them see us as superior to them?
How many people said, “we need to talk, I need to tell you something” but changed their minds realizing how much you didn’t care about them and that you would find them weak for being unable to handle issues of life. Unfortunately, we have trained ourselves to believe that it is weakness to reach to our innermost weaknesses. That to share our emotions mean that we are weak and at a lower level of intelligence.
Imagine if we knew what people were going through? Imagine if they had faith in us to realize that through us, they could avoid adversities of life? Imagine if we gave them a listening ear, or a warm embrace, that for a moment they would forget the weight on their shoulders? Where is the faith? Why would we wait till we lose them to figure that somehow, we knew how to save a life?
You might never understand the lyrics to a song until you live it. Sometimes we enjoy music for the beautiful vocals, the perfect progression of the instruments and the emotions that it brings out from within us. But when you get to experience the lyrics, you understand the music in a whole different light.
At a point in my life, I felt the world was caving in. The ground under my feet was falling apart and all I could see was darkness. I wanted to raise my voice to whoever could care. I wanted to trust that someone would understand what I was feeling, but just like the song I felt they would only judge me and so I kept to myself. Little did I know I was slowly falling.
In my opinion, it is difficult to carry another person’s weight of the world when you have your own life to worry about. It is not like any of us has it all figured out. Probably you do, I don’t know. However, what is life when you don’t have anyone to share it with? What if we showed a little emotion? What if listening and showing concern was enough to save a life? What if all we could offer was a prayer above or a wish? What if that could save a life?
We are a species on earth without the perfect knowledge of how we came to be. But we are happier with friends, family and loved ones. I think we should have each other’s back and show a little emotional concern for each other. Maybe that way we would make each other happy. Maybe that way, when we lose them, we won’t ask ourselves where we went wrong. Because at least we tried.