Ways to help people feel seen

hello this is more people than i was

expecting

um to start off i would like to ask

rhetorical questions you don’t have to

answer but

how many names do you think you learn in

a week

new names people you’ve never heard of

before

how many do you learn in maybe a month

or

a year even is it a lot

just a little do you think maybe that

you’re in too small of a city to really

meet anyone new over time or maybe

you’re in a city too large

to ever get the courage to talk to

someone because there’s too many people

to ever talk to

i’m going to talk about something

serious today and it’s suicide

and i’m not going to preach about your

mental health i’m going to preach about

how

other people sometimes need it because

it’s real it exists and a lot of people

out there think that it’ll never happen

to them

that it’s something they never need to

worry about because it’s so far beyond

them

but i’ve met people that deal with it my

friend even lost her dad to it

i lost my friend to it his name

was paul and he was the nicest guy i

think i’ve ever met

he would take the time to learn

everyone’s names no matter how

insignificant they might have seemed

he would always take time to show them

they are appreciated

that they are an individual and that

they matter

even if it was just for five minutes at

lunch

he was really talented too he would

he would make songs on his guitar with

his friends and he was actually pretty

good he would play them to me sometimes

and he was really good at acting as well

he loved theater

he even played a really important role

in the high school play when he was just

a freshman

it was honestly really impressive but he

had so many friends

everyone loved him he had an amazing

family

amazing talents he had such a future

ahead of him

on october 10th 2017 he called me late

at night

telling me how sad he was how

he wished his life was different easier

how things would change that was all he

wanted

and i remember being surprised not

concerned but

surprised because he had everything he

had

so much going for him and he even had

the most contagious laugh i think i’ve

ever heard

he would always brighten my day if i was

ever sad but it was a mask

and i didn’t know none of us knew no one

knew

not even his family so i was

safe to say yeah i was very surprised

but

i hung up and i figured i’d sleep on it

talk to him tomorrow at school and

hopefully come with better words then

it’ll be okay things will get better

i promise there’s a light ahead

i wake up the next day and my parents

sit me down and tell me that

the previous night he had in fact

committed suicide

it affected all of us greatly we all

loved paul so much

even the school was invited to come to

his funeral because he had touched that

many people in his life

had helped that many people feel

important

and needed and valued

i remember feeling guilty for a while

thinking that

if i had stayed on that phone just five

minutes longer he wouldn’t have done it

because apparently i was last person he

talked to

but i’ve come to the realization that

i shouldn’t feel guilty for it i

shouldn’t let

all the effort he went through go in

vain

and instead i decided to walk away from

what happened to all of us

freshman year and say that i would

continue what he tried to do

i would try and really see people for

who they are really show that they’re

appreciated and valued

in no way am i good at it right now i’m

still working on it

i’m not perfect but i’m trying

because i don’t want anyone else to feel

as hopeless as he did that night

last year there was 48 000 deaths to

suicide

and 1.4 million attempted suicides

and that’s only for the numbers that

they recorded there’s probably other

cases that they don’t even know about

that happened

1.4 million people

felt that they had nothing going for

them there was no point to continue

and i just think that’s extremely sad

because suicide is a permanent

solution to temporary issues and i just

hope that people understand that

it’s never the way to go we should

always keep trying even if it’s hard

so the speech is for my friend paul

for what he went through that no one

could recognize

because i think that we don’t have to

donate thousands of dollars to charities

we don’t have to

save people from jumping off a bridge or

prevent them from buying a noose

all we have to do to really help make a

difference

is take the time to really acknowledge

people

and learn their names because you never

know when it’s enough to make the

difference

thank you

[Applause]

you