Suicide is never the answer

Morning all,

If you're into marketing or social media, you've probably heard by now that popular social media expert Trey Pennington committed suicide.

You can learn more here:

What many people express is they just don't understand how someone who touched so many lives and helped so many people could have felt so lonely and without hope, he'd kill himself.

I, however, understand it perfectly.

I've discovered that people, for the most part, are pretty damned selfish and focused on their own concerns. If they're not a direct member of your family, they simply don't put your needs at a high priority at all.

After all, why should they? What are you to them?

I've lost count of the number of times I've been there for friends, gone out of my way for friends, but when I needed help and support….nobody thought to do what I always do…and be proactive about reaching out.

Luckily, I have a tremendous family structure (wondrous husband, magnificent kids, adorable mooses, etc.), and so I am truly lucky and blessed by that.

But what about those people, like Trey, who don't?

Who helps the helpers?

A few years ago, I remember a friend of mine once shared with me how he was always there for another friend when said friend went thru a horrible breakup and business failure. Day in, day out, my friend made sure *his* friend would know he was valued, would be there for him, send him texts, etc.etc.etc.

Life went on, the friends' friend recovered, and now the friends' friend' life is going along beautifully. Yay!

Thing is, the original friend then went thru some hard times and communicated that. He was told, "Well, hmmm, the thing is, I know you miss our networking and stuff, but you see, I now have someone, so I don't miss it."

Not a word about:

How can I help you?
How can I be there for you?
What can I do?

My friend told me he gave up trying to communicate his needs, because it reduced him down to begging for friendship. He ruefully shared with me all the proactive help he gave, the emails he sent, the meetings in parking lots to talk things out….it honestly was a lot. It was appreciated then, but hey, that was then.