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