Are you running out of hope and are trying to determine your purpose in life. Is it better to live with the pain and hopelessness? Or am I better off dead?
No, you are not better off dead. The only people that know the true value of your life are your friends and family; the people you've helped; and yourself after you have lived a long and full life. You need all three of these attributes to determine if you are better off dead.
Your friends, family, and the people you have helped are best suited to answer this question if you are in pain or emotional distress. Emotional distress clouds our judgment and can cause us to make bad decisions. Besides this, don't we always go to other people when we need advice about something?
If you car is acting weird don't you ask other people to help figure out the problem and the best solution? What about when you were in school? If you didn't understand something you would ask your friends. Don't exclude them from your decision making.
In addition to them, you can't fully answer this question unless you have lived your life until you are old (95 to 100+). One year is a long time, so anything can happen. You could be the one to help someone become the next Billy Graham or Martin Luther King Jr, find true love, get healed, become wealthy, find a great hobby, etc.
If you had to live your life just the way it is now, but had to wait until you were 100 to help someone who would go on to become the next Martin Luther King JR, would you? What if you inspired someone to not go kill a crowd of people?
The point is that we don't know what life has in store for us. The chances of your life staying the exact same are not very probable. Your life has a greater chance of changing than not changing.
If you are in some sort of pain, you will most likely take the steps needed to get out of pain because no one likes pain, regardless of the type (mental, physical, or financial). Once you do, your life will most likely improve dramatically.
The key part there is you will have to do something about it.
I used to be really active. I would workout, run, hunt, fish, carry my kids on my shoulders, etc. Then I injured my shoulder. The injury turned into chronic pain. This pain made it difficult to do all of the things I just said I enjoyed. So much that I quit doing all activities.
I started to lose hope that I would ever get better. I started to think that this is my life and it's only downhill for me.
I had tried doing different physical therapy exercises and things the doctors recommended, but nothing helped.
I had finally had enough. It didn't matter how long it took, I was determined to get better because the pain was taking away the things I enjoyed. I decided to go to physical therapy and work hard everyday.
It took about 6 months, but I finally got some decent results. It's not at 100%, but at least I can do some of these activities again, even if I do have some pain. I am really glad I took the time and energy to get healed because my quality of life is way better.
I encourage you to do some work to improve your situation. You may not be able to see hope now, but I assure you there is a better life for you and it's not just in the afterlife.
I also had some mental health problems as well. Again, I didn't have hope at how my situation could ever change. It did though and I am way better because of it.
Please check out my I Want to Kill Myself page to see my mental health testimony and how I found hope. If you follow the same steps I did, it can change your life!
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