My thoughts have recently been with the family of Jacintha Saldanha the nurse who took her life after transferring the prank call from 2DayFM to the ward of Kate Middleton.
Up front I think the prank was a bit of larrikinism and I have no reason to believe there was any malice attached. It wasn't particularly well done nor was it really convincing. I do think the station management have tried to 'manage' the reaction rather than respond in a humane and decent manner. Unfortunately no matter what they do now they have lost the momentum and botched any hope of being seen in a decent light. The two presenters are two naughty adults who ought to have known better but who have been coached and spun so tightly they probably don't know which way to turn. Their inability to cogently answer some questions in their interviews this week was symptomatic of over engineering and protection from corporate nabobs.
That aside I have pondered why someone would kill themselves, not want to go on living over something as meaningless as the prank. Sure we can blame cultural differences (shame etc), we can speculate on what else was going on for Jacintha that led to her hanging herself or we can look at what might be happening to all of us. That's my concern.
I have felt for quite some time (and some of my previous blogs might reflect this so forgive my repetition) that more and more we are becoming less and less equipped to 'cope' and we have a propensity to attach ourselves to 'things'. We define ourselves by our relationships, by our jobs, our sexuality, iour salary, even by what we own or buy or for the love of Mike, wear. What is going on?
Somewhere along the way we have fallen into the idea that we no longer have worth for just the being we are, that joy doesn't come strongly enough in our individuality, that we always need to be approved of, be part of something, have 'followers' or 'friends' or only have value if we are acknowledged in the context of the general, the group, the ideal or the fashion of the day (clothing and trends). Heaven help us apparently if we are not of the favored demographic, race, religion (or non religious), don't have the latest gizmo (critically the latest), can speak the lingo of the moment or conform to the marketing industries current 'in' thing. This, I think, is what is bringing us down. How can we have a healthy self esteem if that is tagged to something that happens on a whim?
We need to take stock and remember that we are god-given beings who have the privilege of being here, now. Out of the millions upon millions of random (or specific) acts of nature, a whole heap of atoms conjoined at a particular, incredible time and we, each of us individually and as a population are here as a result. It could have been anyone else but it is US. That is amazing, that is one hugely profound idea.
We are NOT more or less worthwhile as a human because of who we choose to love, marry, cohabit with or feel hurt by. If a relationship ends it is often shitty but it ought not be a reason to end our lives, we are made to recover and the challenge - even the wonderful gift for us is to survive the pain and go on and prove we weren't destroyed by it. Reality check...it was just a relationship. Similarly if we lose the job we loved, or were bullied by some sad sick creature or physically attacked by a random nong...we are not the tragedy, we are human beings who can survive it all and go on to rub the universe's noses in the aching despair. We have to stop wanting to or choosing to be the event, the crisis, the emotion and stay being the person. It is hard and it requires re framing of our thinking but, it seems to me, we used to be able to do it. I believe we can again.
As a footnote, I have been a person who has sunk to despair and wanted to curl up in a ball and die. Indeed I have taken active steps to end my life once. I became what my thoughts told me, I was useless and unlovable and worthless. I did that to me, I chose to believe 'me'. So I know what those thoughts are like and I know it can be changed. We are who we are for lots of reasons and we can blame others and we can just stay stuck. Or we can change. Sometimes we don't have the power to change where our hurts or ideas came from but we always can choose where we go from today. We can still do it and we have to be okay about it because it makes us healthy and strong and it can stop us from ending the precious life we've been given.
Talk to your friends who hurt, hug your children and let them know they are precious, give the bullies no power - shrug them off, turn your fear of them into pity for them, love your job but be ok if it ends, nurture your relationship as much as those in it but if it ends, let it go and be okay about that.
I wish Jacintha could have gone on to know all this. And you know what? I wish I could have one day been in London and know that I could still walk past her, not even knowing it was her but that she was on her way home to her family and was feeling okay...about herself.
Be well and take care
No comments:
Post a Comment