It struck me yesterday, as it often has before, how much of life is a fight
against hopelessness. Day after day, life requires living, and to live
requires a reason to live, hope that life will continue to be worth it.
  In a world such as ours, hope is in scarce supply these days. Increasingly,
people are finding less reason to continue living. Young people especially
are committing suicide in higher numbers than ever before. A reason to live,
any reason at all, is apparently more than many people are able to find.
  I used to be a very suicidal person. Looking back at the way I felt not too
long ago and the things I wrote, I saw no hope or reason for my own life. It
seemed to be an existence mostly of sorrow and grief, with precious little
joy to break the gloom. Many people today, similarly, are in dead-end lives.
Amazing though it may be, it seems that most of them are not aware of it, or
rather are subconsciously aware of it but try not to think about it. Life is
incredibly fragile; A simple accident could kill someone, leaving all their
efforts to build a good life for naught. All around them, poverty, hunger,
and illness are rampant. And even if things go well, there's always the
ultimate conclusion: No matter what happens when we live, ultimately, we all
die.
  Amidst all this, I've come to the conclusion that most people are entirely
aware how hopeless life usually seems, but have decided to forge on anyway,
for no other reason than the possibility that something worth living for
might happen. If people deny the hopelessness of life, they are in a state of
denial; They deny the obvious.
  But I no longer feel the way I used to about life. I have found cause to
continue on. The reason is not because my life is any better than it used to
be back then (it's really about the same), nor because I am on Prozac (though
perhaps I should have been before), nor any other reason than a simple,
logical realization: If someone dies, there is truly no hope for their life.
  Death is the end of life. If you've ever wanted a good life, you won't have
it when you're dead. True, most people who kill themselves do so because they
feel death is better than the agony of living, but while you're alive, you
still have the opportunity to do things, to make life better, for both
yourself and other people. And while a single person can't usually make a big
difference, they can still very much make a small difference.
  This is why we live. So that each of us could do the best we can with our
lives in our own way. What we can do only seems small when we compare it to
the rest of the world: In a world of billions, we can't change the entire
world. On that scale, our efforts are indeed tiny. But taken on their own,
every single person in the world has the capacity to do quite a lot. You can
do something with your own life. If you do your very best in this life and
have the highest good in your heart, your life can still mean something.
  YOU HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE YOUR LIFE WORTH SOMETHING.
  And when you realize this, as I have now, there is still hope. It is not
blind, foolish hope, like the people who maintain that Utopia is just around
the corner, in which science will solve all of mankind's problems. It is a
reasonable hope, based on the fact that a small good is better than no good
at all.
  And so I have decided to live. I wish all of you a happy life, and that you
could make the most of it, using every resource you have to do something
positive.