Is My Life Worth Living?

In the Book of Job, Job lamented, “Why won’t God give me what I ask? Why won’t he answer my prayer? If only He could go ahead and kill me. What strength have I got to keep on living? Why go on living when I have no hope? Month after month I have nothing to live for, when I lie down to sleep the hours drag, I toss all night long for dawn. My life makes no sense. He won’t let me catch my breath. He has filled my life with bitterness. Should I force God? Should I take Him to court? Can anyone make Him go? I no longer care. I am sick of living. Nothing matters. My days race by not one of them is good. I smile and try to forget my pain, but all my suffering comes back to haunt me. Is it right for you to be so cruel? To despise what you yourself have made? Your hands formed and shaped me and now those same hands destroy me. Why did God let me be born? I should have died before anyone saw me. To go from the womb straight to the grave would have been as good as never existing. Is not my life over?

My days have passed, my plans have failed, my hope is gone. But my friends say night is daylight, they say that light is near, but I know I remain in darkness. Nothing I say helps and being calm does not calm my pain. God has worn me out. He wounds me again and again and attacks me like a soldier gone mad with hate. God seizes me by the collar and twists my clothes out of shape. He throws me down on the mud; I am not better than dirt. I sit here in the dust defeated. What I feared has come upon me, what I dreaded has happened. I have no peace, no quietness. I have no rest; only troubles come. I have cried until my face is red and my eyes are swollen and circled with shadows. My grief has almost made me blind. I have barely escaped with my life. I can hardly breathe. There is nothing left for me but the grave. When I think of what has happened to me I am stunned and tremble and shake. If only my grief could be weighed, and my suffering placed on the scales, it would outweigh the sands of the sea.

My only hope is in the world of the dead. How I wish I knew where to find Him, I knew how to go to where He is and state my case before Him.”

The prophet Jeremiah also cried out, “Why did I ever come forth from the womb, to look upon trouble and sorrow, so that my days have been spent in shame? Curse the day I was born; let the day my mother bore me not be blessed. Why did I not die in the womb, with my mother as my grave? Why did I come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and end my days in shame?”

The prophet Elijah also prayed for death, saying, “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.” And these were all great men of God.

There are those who feel that life is hardly worth living. They secretly wish for a peaceful departure, silently praying for God to take them in their sleep and free them from the heaviness and sorrow that press upon them each day. Their desire is not so much for heaven itself but for an end to their pain, even if it means entering a state of nothingness.

Although such feelings can leave a person feeling completely alone, convinced that no one could possibly understand, they are a part of the human experience. It is human to feel as though life is unbearable, to the point where total despair takes over and the will to live perishes. Many suffer in silence, ashamed of such thoughts, convinced their pain is unique; however, such feelings are more common than we think. These thoughts and emotions are not something to be buried, denied, or succumbed to, but rather faced, understood, and worked through.

There have been times when I questioned the point of my life. I wondered whether my broken existence, lacking hope, joy, success, and meaning, was worth enduring. In those moments, I imagined God kindly granting me a gentle passing in my sleep, for whenever I considered taking my own life, no option ever seemed ideal.

I had the same thoughts as Veronica in Paolo Coelho’s novel Veronica Decides to Die. I pictured myself slitting my wrists in a steamy bathroom while taking a hot bath, as this is a common setting for such an act. However, I have never heard of anyone dying from wrist-slitting. Typically, those who attempt this are found semi-conscious in the bathtub with a dainty amount of blood trickling from their veins, and they are promptly rescued. In a state of panic, they are rushed to the hospital, even though they would have survived at home. All they needed was a bandage for their wrists and a few strong painkillers to help manage the pain.

Then, I considered a more certain method of achieving death: I could shoot myself. But where would I obtain a gun? Even if I knew where to get one, could I afford to buy one? And even if I could afford one, would my hands be steady enough to pull the trigger? If my hands were steady enough to pull the trigger, what if I somehow survived, only to be left in a vegetative state? I would end up becoming an even greater burden to both myself and my mother, with my troubles worsening far beyond what they had been before pulling the trigger.

I thought about jumping off a tall building, but my acrophobia ruled that out completely. Beyond that, the thought of the pain involved, and the possibility of every bone being broken, was enough to remove it from consideration. I had heard, though I did not know how true it was, that most people suffer a fatal heart attack before they hit the ground, which might make death less painful. Still, I was not willing to take that chance. After all, who lived to confirm it?

I contemplated overdosing on pills. However, given my luck or lack thereof, the likelihood was that I would simply fade away into what appeared to be death, only to later awaken in a hospital surrounded by sympathetic faces. Then I would be informed that thankfully, my stomach had been pumped just in time. After this ordeal, I would probably keep wondering whom to blame for my continued existence, the pills or time.

Lastly, there was the consideration of death by hanging. However, it’s been said that people experience uncontrollable bowel movements during or after hanging. The idea of being covered in excrement is unbecoming for a lady, whether dead or alive, depressed or not....

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