A few years back, I answer this question very differently, but right now, I honestly think that yes, people would dearly miss me if I died. This question is very personal to me, so allow me to go in depth.
I've come to find one thing about myself, I'm not as annoying or s***ty as I like to make myself out to be when I try to justify my flaws (long story short, whenever confronted with a minor flaw, I handwave it as me being a s*** person), and for the longest time, I honestly believed that I was just an unlikable person who everyone hated for no real reason besides being unlikable.
I've come to find my lack of friends, popularity, and social life in high school wasn't due to me being s***ty or uninteresting or any of that, I just made myself unavailable to people, and chose to be anti-social, a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein I thought I was crap, so I never made the effort to prove I wasn't, and thus, made people think I was crap in turn.
I only recently, in the past few years, put in much effort into my social life. Now, I have a loving and devoted girlfriend, a family that understands the pains I went through as a teenager (pains I didn't have the words for, or the compassion to state) and accepts me for all my flaws, an extended family that includes my girlfriend's mother and sister (one I see as a sister as well), and many friends all over the world, from Malaysia to California, to Maine, to the UK, all the way to Australia. I have many small friends, hundreds of acquaintances I can hold conversation with, a dozen or so close friends, and an inner circle of five or six people that I can literally tell anything to.
It is through this emergence of a social life that was so effortless to put together, that I found something out about myself, though I didn't find out myself. Many of my new friends, who have learned about my less than fabulous social life in the past, have expressed shock I wasn't popular in high school or college or any of that, and have used words like "charismatic" to describe me. My bosses at work seemingly love me, for my blend of work ethic, and undying cheer when greeting even the worst of customers, and the only people I know for a fact don't like me are people who have never actually gotten to sit down and chat with me, one on one.
This is a little bit arrogant to state, so I apologize in advance, but I fully believe that I am a personable and charismatic person, who can connect with almost anyone on whatever level is needed.
It is through these many personal connections I've made in the past few years that I have learned one thing.
If I died, many people would miss me.
They wouldn't build a statue or anything to commemorate my life, but my life definitely has meaning to many people.
If you had told that to me when I was 16, and about to attempt suicide for the second time, then I would have probably laughed at you for suggesting such a blithe impossibility. A few years back, I answer this question very differently, but right now, I honestly think that yes, people would dearly miss me if I died. This question is very personal to me, so allow me to go in depth.
I've come to find one thing about myself, I'm not as annoying or s***ty as I like to make myself out to be when I try to justify my flaws (long story short, whenever confronted with a minor flaw, I handwave it as me being a s*** person), and for the longest time, I honestly believed that I was just an unlikable person who everyone hated for no real reason besides being unlikable.
I've come to find my lack of friends, popularity, and social life in high school wasn't due to me being s***ty or uninteresting or any of that, I just made myself unavailable to people, and chose to be anti-social, a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein I thought I was crap, so I never made the effort to prove I wasn't, and thus, made people think I was crap in turn.
I only recently, in the past few years, put in much effort into my social life. Now, I have a loving and devoted girlfriend, a family that understands the pains I went through as a teenager (pains I didn't have the words for, or the compassion to state) and accepts me for all my flaws, an extended family that includes my girlfriend's mother and sister (one I see as a sister as well), and many friends all over the world, from Malaysia to California, to Maine, to the UK, all the way to Australia. I have many small friends, hundreds of acquaintances I can hold conversation with, a dozen or so close friends, and an inner circle of five or six people that I can literally tell anything to.
It is through this emergence of a social life that was so effortless to put together, that I found something out about myself, though I didn't find out myself. Many of my new friends, who have learned about my less than fabulous social life in the past, have expressed shock I wasn't popular in high school or college or any of that, and have used words like "charismatic" to describe me. My bosses at work seemingly love me, for my blend of work ethic, and undying cheer when greeting even the worst of customers, and the only people I know for a fact don't like me are people who have never actually gotten to sit down and chat with me, one on one.
This is a little bit arrogant to state, so I apologize in advance, but I fully believe that I am a personable and charismatic person, who can connect with almost anyone on whatever level is needed.
It is through these many personal connections I've made in the past few years that I have learned one thing.
If I died, many people would miss me.
They wouldn't build a statue or anything to commemorate my life, but my life definitely has meaning to many people.
If you had told that to me when I was 16, and about to attempt suicide for the second time, then I would have probably laughed at you for suggesting such a blithe impossibility. |