You just don’t know what people are going through in their personal lives.
Unfortunately it takes a tragedy to reveal what it was that they were secretly going through or a hidden indulgence that they used to escape a particular pain in their soul.
With all of the means of communication that we have today, we have become a nation of emotionally Photoshopped reclusive social misfits who are so quick and proficient in projecting the image of the perfect life while most often it is quite the opposite.
We don’t speak to each other anymore and our cyber projections as well as our public persona are not in line with who and what we truly are internally.
We work so hard in how things appear to the world at the expense of the neglected inner turmoils that are steadily brewing out of sight that will be the very thing to be the reason for a tragedy to manifest in a very lethal and sometimes fatal manner.
It happens all of the time. With our celebrities and our not so famous peers. Nobody reaches out for help anymore when they’re going through their changes and no one seems to reach out anymore when certain behaviors that indicate someone is not doing too well are evident.
I guess no one wants that “stigma” put on them that they are weak, inept in handling their own business or just plain crazy and will allow their hidden issues to get out of hand until it’s too late. This mindset is very common in the Black community and so many have suffered permanently because of their refusal to get the help they need in troubled times.
This brings to mind the recent death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, even though I don’t believe his heroin overdose won’t be ruled a suicide, the very fact that he was such a high profile person lends testimony to the fact that even when you feel that you know everything about a person you probably haven’t even scratched the surface.
I believe in Mr. Hoffman’s case it was just another Heroin session for him that happened to go bad. But when you look at a person who has accomplished so much and can afford to live in an apartment where the rent is ten thousand dollars per month, you’ve got to ask yourself why?
I guess happiness is a relative state of mind, I mean, I would love to even have an extra ten thousand dollars every year on my salary much less to have that to pay on an apartment every month.
But for some reason with all of the money that he had (Now I’m not saying that he was a billionaire now!) and all of the respect that he had from his peers, there was something deep inside that he was trying to escape that warped his view of all that he had accrued in his lifetime.
You have to ask yourself “what could that have been?”
Unfortunately, unless those who were close to him knew what it was we will never know. Might he have opened up if approached on his inner demons? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I will say that everyone in his inner circle couldn’t have been oblivious to something not being right as is most of the time when someone is self medicating or going through an intense pain from unknown origins.
Look at the blur of incidents in recent years on the news – most of which I can’t recall in detail for this article – where an individual who was known to most as a loving spouse and caring super parent all of a sudden kills every single last member of his family before turning the weapon in on themselves in a scenario that just didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
And when the investigation is completed in those unfortunate cases it is found that something that we would deem an insignificant stress was the mental/emotional turning point that caused them to lose it so violently.
Maybe that person received a pay cut and could live as lavishly as they used to or possibly they’ve lost a significant amount of investment funds in the stock market, what ever the cause of their strife to others it didn’t warrant the taking of innocent lives as well as their own.
Again, just as we don’t know what people are going through in their lives, we simply don’t know what their tolerance thresholds are for stress too.
This is why we have to move about the earth in a state of spiritual high alert because what may appear to be a well adjusted person who pretty much has their live together may be that walking time bomb whose explosion may not only cause them permanent harm, but can get you caught in the meltdown all because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What we need to do in our present world is to be aware of any slight changes in the behavior of our loved ones, co workers and just about anyone that we deal with in our day as a move forward in our unique paths through life.
It doesn’t take much at all to generously share the precious gift of the human touch.
A smile.
An innocent private joke.
A hug.
…….or merely that time spent in a non judgmental caring way that makes a person feel as though someone cares enough to make their presence be known to them.
Just as those stressful “triggers” can set of a disaster of a tragedy that can’t ever be fixed, a caring thoughtful mindset when interacting with our fellow man can negate those deadly dormant triggers and bring about a sense of hope that would prevent anything bad from happening.
Trust me, all of us could have been that person who found themselves in a sorry state of affairs if it weren’t for the support systems that were in place to guide us in the right direction and not into that place of destruction.
Communication and connectedness is the key to preventing these things from happening especially when you really just don’t know what so many of us are going through in our private and double lives.
We need to take action now in how we treat one another because that happy go lucky co-worker or that family member that tells you that everything is alright every time you ask them how things are going just might be the next person that is found dead in there apartment with a needle in their arm or goes on a shooting spree that came from a person who appeared to have a pristine life.
Yes, we need to be on the lookout for suspicious terrorist activities in this day and age, but let us not get so caught up in that where we forget to remember that we have real people out here who are suffering their silent pains.
Take the time to put that smartphone down to lift someones spirits up! A phone can be replaced but a person who loses their life cannot.
Peace & Righteous Love Always,
Your “More Considerate Than I Used To Be” Brother,
LanceScurv
407.590.0755
