By KENDRA REINING
Columnist
Suicide by definition is the action of killing oneself intentionally. I have yet to understand how people could do this to themselves, how they can take themselves from the people who love them. How do you gain the confidence to take yourself from the world, when you are put on this earth for a purpose?
Suicide is selfish; you end up hurting the people around you and changing their lives in a way that will only do damage to them. Is it worth hurting the people you say you love? I have always been a firm believer that when your time comes to die then it comes, but in my opinion suicide is cutting your life short. It’s like reading a few chapters in a book and getting bored and skipping to the end to see how it finishes. It is always those chapters in between that define our lives and define who we were in life. Robin Williams cut his life short; he probably gave up countless roles that could have influenced people’s lives, like they did my own.
Robin Williams was one of the greatest actors to ever live. His sense of humor could make even serious people crack a smile. His movies were my childhood/ I watched everything from “Aladdin,” “Jumanji,” “Flubber” and my all-time favorite, “Mrs. Doubtfire. ” He was easy to look up to because he wasn’t afraid to be who he was, and as a child you constantly struggle to fit it. Williams once said, “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” This statement is true — his ideas and words did change the world for many people. I believe this is why the world was so shocked to see him commit suicide. So many looked up to him and in a way he let them down. It is easy to look at people who are comedians and believe that with that sense of humor and constant smile that they couldn’t possibly be thinking of killing themselves. That they weren’t buried down in a deep, dark hole like Williams was said to be in at the time of his death.
I have never understood how somebody’s life can get so bad that they think suicide is the only way to escape and get away from their problems. Maybe it is only me, but he seemed like a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. His comedy and personality never led anyone to believe he would choose the path he chose. I have never understood how life could get so bad that people think that is their only solution; shouldn’t there always be a way to fix it? Nobody will ever know why he did it, and I think that is what bothers me most. Maybe if I knew why he chose to, I could understand just why he thought suicide was his last option. He was known for his humor, he could play the craziest of roles, and now all that is left in his legacy is the Robin Williams we all knew in his movies.