Most people do believe in who they are – at times. But it seems as if there’s WAY more risk these days when resilience is lacking.
Suicide accounts for around 2% of annual deaths in Canada. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the amount of people that die each year, that equals between 3,500-4,000 suicides.
Every year.
That’s seven times the homicide rate in Canada. That’s 10 suicides a day. And it’s very prevalent among our youth. Not only are young people thinking of suicide (1 in 10 adolescents has admitted the thought), but for every 1 death by suicide there are at least 10 attempts.
So why is this happening?
NO. It’s not because of the popular 2017 Netflix show “13 Reasons Why”. C’mon people, stop taking the well worn and tired excuse of blaming the media for everything.
It’s because of one thing… we aren’t flexing our RESILIENCE muscle enough. Why? Because just like muscles in the body, resilience must be built. It must be taught. It must be learned. And you don’t learn
resilience through EDUCATION. You learn resilience through EXPERIENCE.
And what is resilience. It’s the ability to “bounce back” when bad things happen. But it’s more than that. Building resilience is like blowing into a balloon. When you blow air into it, the balloon stretches. And the more it stretches, the longer it lasts. We as humans are the same…the more we’re stretched, the longer we last and the stronger we get. And if there is a young person in your life, it’s your responsibility to teach them how much they CAN stretch so that they know they can. When they learn they can “survive the stretch”, they are better prepared when they go through other difficulties in life.
The video above is simply that. I took a simple exercise and turned it into an opportunity to show that student that he could overcome more than he thought he could. I’d like to think that he remembered this day the next time he faced a struggle that he wasn’t sure he could overcome. Maybe it’s just a dream, but I believe that we can literally teach an end to suicide.
Are you ready to be a part of the solution?
Then do this: Go out today and show ONE person something they can do that they once thought they couldn’t.
Do that, and that’s one more person that will choose life.
