August 28, 2013

When There is Nothing Worth Living For

When you feel hopeless, helpless, and worthless there are activities that you can do that can make you realize that you are not the hopeless, helpless, or worthless person that you thought you were. One good strategy for that is to do activities that will prove to you that you have an obligation to continue living. By volunteering for a cause you can begin to understand why you are in this world to begin with. You may realize that you are not in this world just to indulge in life’s pleasures but to make use of your talents.

A talent could be as simple as being able to sit next to a person at a homeless shelter and listen attentively and with genuine empathy to a person that may have lost everything as the result of a tragic event in his or her life. That kind of experience alone may make you feel that your problems are very small compared to other people. In the mean time, you are showing this person that you care and since you care you give this person hope and, thus, you become valuable to this person’s life, which proves that you are not as worthless as you thought you were. By being helpful you may also realize that if you are capable of helping someone then there is hope that you can also help yourself.

By volunteering at programs that helped homeless kids several years ago I was able to experience a renewed sense of purpose in my life. By working to help kids find answers to their problems I began to find answers for myself. By working so that they would find a way to believe in themselves I began to believe in myself.

However, volunteering with the homeless is not the only way to achieve that. There are countless people that sacrificed their lives fighting other causes that they felt passionate about. However, whether you volunteer to fight for a better environment, animal rights, the protection of endangered species, human rights, or any other activity, that you may start feeling passionate about, the result will be the same. You may begin to realize that if there is nothing worth living for there are things worth dying for.