I've Solved the Suicide Epidemic

Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death for all ages in 2010.

There were 38,364 suicides in 2010 in the United States--an average of 105 each day.

There is one suicide for every 25 attempted suicides.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among persons aged 15-24 years, the second among persons aged 25-34 years, the fourth among person aged 35-54 years, and the eighth among person 55-64 years.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Suicide_DataSheet-a.pdf

I take guitar lessons now.  My brother Eddie and I trade off weekly sessions with our teacher.  He loves to talk about guitar, and he focuses a lot on theory, which is pretty new to us.  We've taken guitar and piano lessons before, but never actually learned music theory.


Anyway, one of the many things he often repeats is that "guitar should be fun."  (More like "The gee-tar ought 'er be fun!")  He insists that he does not want to be a taskmaster or have a bunch of rules or 'you must' and 'you can't's.

This has been drilled into my head since the moment our lessons began.  Guitar should be fun.  Guitar ought to be fun!  There's no point in guitar if it's no fun.  You won't play well or practice well if you don't enjoy playing guitar.

Well, one night, my mom told me I needed to practice guitar.  My first reaction was *groan* Oh I forgot about guitar!  My second reaction?  This is no fun.  I might as well just quit lessons or something.  I don't enjoy it.  I hardly have enough time to practice, anyway.

See the progression?  Guitar should be fun > I am not having fun > There's no point in my playing guitar anymore, and I should quit.

Now I'm not saying anything about guitar, and yes, I'm still taking lessons and practicing anyway.  But you see the analogy, right?  Take a look at the culture we live in:

"Why not be happy after a while? You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to get happy." ~ John Mayer

"Very little is needed to make a happy life." ~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling." ~ Margaret Lee Runbeck

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." ~ Brendan Gill

"Happiness depends upon ourselves." ~ Aristotle

"Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age." ~ Christopher Morley

"All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh." ~ Doris Lessing

"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why." ~ Eddie Cantor

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." ~ George Santayana

"Man is the artificer of his own happiness." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Life should be happy > I am not happy > There's no point in my living anymore, and I should just quit.

Hmm... maybe the purpose of life is not the pursuit of happiness?

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men." ~ John 1:4

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." ~ Matthew 10:39

"I am that bread of life." ~ John 6:48