S U I C I D E - The Forever Decision

Everybody always says ‘it's not what you know, it's who you know.’
But nobody ever teaches you - how to know, ‘who you know.’

May be the answer for the question is far simpler than it seems. This event had a very strong impact on my life. It taught me to be thoughtful for every word I utter and thankful for everything I have, to love my family, to be brave, and simple. I believe that people commit suicide when they are afraid of tomorrow.

It only takes a moment to make someone's day - to become a Humane Human (Being Human to Human Being). Sometimes those moments even change lives as I discovered on Friday- 14 August, 2015. I was closing my Train-the-Trainer workshop when a participant came in with her queries on random professional and social aspects. I was initially surprised to hear her since she looked confident and rational with her poised and crisp flow of thoughts. I figured that she must have an important disagreement in professional/ social engagement, so...post our discussion, I asked her about her evening plans.

‘I don't have anything special going on,’ she told me. ‘I just want to feel good tonight.’

I gave her my views on dealing with imperfections around. And, how being an Army Officer’s son- shaped me as an individual. Also, why I am passionately in love with training and how I am committed towards changing lives. During our approx. 30 minutes together, we joked and laughed. At the end, she smiled radiantly, hugging me goodbye.

On Tuesday- 25 August, 2015 I received a letter from this lady and began to realize the enormous potential of Humane Human. This lady admitted that she had planned to commit suicide that evening. But the wonderful time she had during our post-training discussion had given her hope that things could get better. She decided to check herself into the hospital and get professional help. She thanked me for talking, listening to her and caring, even though I hadn't known what she was going through.

She wrote
"thank you for being there without knowing that you were."

I was stunned!
I had spent time with this lady about twice in a month, yet that day I had no inkling she was so distressed. I was glad to have made such a difference, yet the experience left me speechless with an enormous sense of accountability and responsibility. What if I had been upset, distracted, or hurried when she came to talk to me? That experience made me take stock of myself as a Trainer, as a Person and as a Human. How many of the thirteen participants I saw that day might be in personal crisis? Even if it were only one person a day, I might have no way of knowing who needed some extra attention. I resolved to treat every person I meet like I had treated that lady. It might sound like a lot of work, but it wasn't hard to have fun with my participants that day. It was natural and made my day brighter, too.

I did good and bad things in my life, but I always was rewarded for a positive impact. I studied to be less judging and more understanding. I try to see people as a whole and do not separate person’s good and bad qualities. People have weaknesses, sometimes they regret about their actions. I know to forgive, but I never forget. I lost faith in perfect human relationship some time ago and started to see the whole picture. There is no perfection in life, but it is important to try to be perfect.

After that experience, I vowed to give care and attention to everyone I saw. I figured it would make their day a little better, and who knows, it might save a life. I still thank that lady for the gift of that letter because it changed my life as much as my presence changed hers. When you realize the difference you can make for others, whether by spending a light-hearted half-hour together, giving them a smile, or simply holding the door open for them, your whole approach to life shifts. Why have random acts of kindness when we can have intentional acts of good will?

I go back to that event and analyses it, every day. I also wanted to go with it in public, but I could guess that it would make me emotionally engaged. I felt even more emotional, than I thought I will be. This help me to realize that there are more important things than money or career. It also revealed the importance of forgiveness. I learned to forgive myself and to go forward in every single crisis of my life. It made me speak out at any price. The only reward for that kind of action is – knowledge that possibly I prevented a tragedy. I believe that it was worth it.

"Everything about our biology is to avoid pain, avoid injury, avoid death, even people who feel suicidal fortunately have a very hard time actually making an attempt."
- Klonsky

The event above may show me as an empathetic person. But I like to analyse my actions, to go deep down to my conscious. It is important for me to create impact on people, for that reason I did not want to write something meaningless. Eventually, the tragic end of someone I never met personally (always heard, what fantastic woman she was, and how her suicide killed ‘the real’ someone I knew) was one of the most significant events of my life. I decided to use this forum because I wanted to create deep and complicate image of my personality. There are a lot of different ways for a person to express himself, but I always liked to talk/ write, and it was the best way for me to express my identity.

Suicidal thoughts are temporary. Suicide is permanent. Don’t give in to thoughts – you can overcome them.

 

Note: The identities of the people written about in this post have been carefully disguised in accordance with professional standards of confidentiality.
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Surya Jena  is a Leadership and Management Development Trainer. To see upcoming posts from him in your Blogspot, connect to his account by clicking the "Subscribe/ Follow" button at the top right of the page. Click here to follow Surya on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imsuryajena

Reject-ion it is!!

There are few experiences more painful than being rejected. We vividly remember the hurt of not being picked for a football etc. sports team, not being invited to a birthday party or social event, or not being accepted to university. Our basic human need to belong causes these incidents to stick with us through the years.

Even as adults, at various times in our careers we're not selected for jobs, promotions, or projects; or even less significant benefits such as parking spaces, preferred offices, or new computer equipment. Whether it's fair or not, the hard reality is that everyone cannot have everything.

Accepting rejection however is not an easy process — for children or adults — and majority of us handle it poorly. When this happens repeatedly, it often leads to two types of dysfunctional patterns in organizations: entitlement and resignation.

Entitlement is when someone feels that he deserves certain benefits, no matter the reality of the situation. For example, I recently worked with a company that reduced costs by moving staff members into other building and having them share meeting rooms, printers, and other services. A few people refused to accept the new standards, arguing their unique needs for privacy, space, and administrative support. They felt entitled to these benefits and considered anything less to be a rejection of their status and personal self-worth.

At the other extreme is resignation, when people avoid situations where they might be rejected. In the example above, some people resigned themselves to the reduced space by not engaging in conversations about how the design of the office would work. By passively accepting the new constraints, they made sure that none of their ideas were rejected (because they didn't offer any). This may have been psychologically comfortable, but the organization didn't benefit from their contributions and their buy-in to the new facility was minimal.

In light of these behaviors, leaders need to encourage a more conscious and healthy toleration of rejection. While all employees should feel comfortable offering ideas, raising issues, and making observations — they should do so with the knowledge that they may be rejected. If they get discouraged or angry about not having their ideas accepted, they might shut down and stop contributing. Similarly, if employees feel so self-important that the organization should never turn them down; their sense of entitlement will make it difficult to drive constructive change.

It's easier to talk about learning from rejection than to actually experience it. Rejection often triggers painful emotional doubts about our own competence and self-worth, so we either try to avoid it or pretend that it doesn't matter. A more constructive approach is to remember that rejection can be beneficial; it can force us to come up with more ideas, redirect us to different paths, and keep us humble and open to learning.

 - Surya Kanta Jena - 
imsuryajena@gmail.com