This post starts in my Philosophical Ethics class, where myself and four other people were attempting to come up with a non-religious argument against suicide in all instances.
I could not think of one argument that would apply to all cases.
We were presented with the story of an elderly couple who had severe health problems and mutually decided to end their lives. This started me thinking.....at what point does life cease to have value?
Where does one find their value in life, anyway? The truth is, it is found in different places for different people. Even during the course of one lifetime, a person might find their value in different things. It might be that they value themselves as a friend, a mother, a lover, a sibling, etc..
All of these things might even occur simultaneously. Parting of finding balance in life is learning how to find value in its different aspects.
I think that this is one reason that persons who get out of the military sometimes struggle. Here is a large part of your life, one in which your value is largely defined. Losing that part of your life means losing that value.
Value must be something that we feel at the present. When people lose their sense of value, their sense of self suffers. Most of the time this is an unconscious thought. We do not often think of our value to others during our daily life.
It is also difficult to think of the idea of value when one does not feel appreciated. A mother has unmeasurable value to her children, but when they are young they cannot express this. Her value as a mother is reflected in how she is supported by those around her, especially by a co-parent or her own family.
I will touch on this lightly, as I am saving this for another post, but this idea has repercussions for Christian life. Him who we are supposed to be emulating found value as a servant. He literally humbled Himself unto death.
Think of this; if Jesus was born sinless, He had no death to fear. "For the wages of sin is death." Had He not humbled Himself, he could have lived forever as a king on earth. There are an untold number of applications for this humility that are being ignored by American Christianity.
So what is the conclusion? That no matter the circumstance of your life, your age, gender, social, economic, or health status, your life has value. That value does not lie in what you can get out of life or how well you can live your life, but in what you have to offer to those around you. Maybe this means suffering indignities, but there it is.
Your life has value. Embrace it.
