MY PLEDGES, A TRIBUTE TO MY KINGS

As a young lad I was blessed to have come across his Majesty during one of his visits to Jakar High School. One thing that has had a lasting impact on my life was his Majesty’s wisdom laden statement that the future lies in the hands of our youth while attitude is all that matters. Those days I wondered why His majesty meant by this statement but today I am no more that little boy but a grownup who is striving to do what His Majesty envisioned. My generation of young people along with his Son, my king, were immensely blessed to have his Majesty the Fourth King as our North Star. During that visit, I was amongst those many young boys trying to catch hold of sweets His majesty the King and their Majesties the Queens threw in the crowd while they smiled at us. I got few chocolates to cherish. However, his Majesty’s advice for us to study hard to serve our nation was the one that germinated a seed of patriotism in me. I consider my generation as the golden generation of our country for the fact that I had one foot in the medieval while another in modern Bhutan. I had that experience of living a life without electricity and a life in modern Bhutan with every possible modern facility at my disposal making my life far comfortable and easier than those days. This drastic transition, which happened within my lifetime, is something noteworthy and I have no doubt that without His Majesty’s dynamic leadership and farsightedness, what we embrace today would have been a distant dream. I still have some faint memory of early 90s, a small uprising of some people in the South. That uprising created chaos and fear amongst people in general and I was one young boy who was deeply affected by it. My brothers were in boarding schools while one of my elder brothers joined militia but back home I had to join some of our village elders in night petrol especially in guarding our Chamkhar Bridge and some village stupas. I also remember our village elders engaged in prayers dedicated to the immediate resolution of the Southern problem. This was in fact the real test to His Majesty’s formidable leadership. It did not take much time to resolve the conflict. His Majesty restored the peace while security of our sovereign nation was enhanced. It seemed that His majesty had foreseen the Southern uprising way back in 70s because His Majesty like his Father stressed much on the concept of One Nation, One People. Through the concept of One nation, one people, people from different creeds, ethnic backgrounds and castes could actually come together to live in perfect harmony. However, few awful people actually overlooked that and they jolted our long cherished peace and harmony for awhile. In retrospection, I feel that without His Majesty’s firm viable decision and farsightedness, Bhutan would have never achieved the unprecedented national unity since then. The great Fourth is truly a destined leader who has blessed Bhutan and her people for many years. People call his Majesty a reincarnation of great Zhabdrung or some other great Buddhist Masters and sometimes even the Buddha of Compassion but to me His Majesty has always been a true leader destined to guide the blessed country and her fortunate people. As someone stated, his Majesty’s wisdom is as spacious as the clear blue sky, which he uses everyday in guiding his every decision that pertains to our national interest. Over the period of time, one of His Majesty’s most significant leadership traits that I learned is that His Majesty is never bias or partial. He is unshakably just and fair irrespective of gender, caste or even blood relationship. Honestly, I always try to inculcate this trait in my daily helping profession. This has always amazed me because I find very rare people with this trait and I feel that if every Bhutanese leader adopts this rare trait, I am sure we can literally prevent so called nepotism, cronyism or corruption at all levels in our country. On this auspicious 60th birthday, more than the praises we offer to His Majesty, it would please him if all of us be just and fair in our profession or day-to-day duties and commit to refrain from any corrupt practice, which is actually costing our nation a great pain that would cripple our beautiful country in long run. I take this honor to make my pledge that if I continue to work as a civil servant, I will make sure that knowingly I will never involve in any corrupt practice or in any activity that may possibly undermine our sovereignty. If by luck, if I land up in politics, I shall never compromise our national interest with that of my political mission. I wish that all the politicians put our national interest before their political agenda while people when they cast their votes they do it wisely for someone who can serve the King, Government and People sincerely with high degree of integrity. Democracy was an unexpected yet priceless gift from our great Fourth to the people of Bhutan. Democracy in many countries has cost millions of lives and so much of bloodshed but in Bhutan despite peoples’ reluctance, his Majesty gifted it to us. This was a clear indication that his Majesty always put forefront the general interest of the people of Bhutan before his personal motive. I wish that on this auspicious day that all the political parties come together and pledge that they will never divide the people of Bhutan into various parties unlike the 2008 election, which apparently saw division of people into PDP and DPT. This was neither His Majesty’s dream nor his intention. It was very clear from the beginning that his Majesty delivered the Democracy to us with the hope that government formed by the people would serve the people better. With apparent rifts back in the villages, within families and friends, I was not so happy with the way Democracy actually unfurled in Bhutan, which has actually inspired me to write my poem “Anti-Democratic”. I craved for complete Monarchy to be re-instated because people of Bhutan were never in absolute unity than we were under the complete Monarchy. Corruption seemed more pervasive under democratic rule while the Losing party members did not seem to rejoice the victory parade of the reigning Government. I feared that Democracy was never meant for a small country like ours when we have our dynamic, steadfast, farsighted and most compassionate but firm King to rule and lead us. The King treated us as one citizen while democratically elected leaders always favored their party partisans and put their party’s interest before the national agenda. Do not wrong me, I do not mean that we should get back to the complete Monarchy because that is something which our great Fourth has never envisaged. His Majesty intended that Democracy is the best governance to the people in general and now we must make pledge that we shall cast our vote wisely and choose our leaders who will always put our national interest before their Party’s and their own. Let’s make vow on this auspicious day that we shall not cast our vote in expectation of certain personal favor or based on our connections or affiliations with the party and their members. Let’s cast our vote to live by the vision that His Majesty set for Bhutan and her People. Let’s all make this solemn oath that we shall never treat our right to cast vote a commodity that can be sold and bribed for our personal favor but always respect it as the most priceless gift from our great Fourth, that has also come with a huge national responsibility on each one of us. Late 90s and early 2000s were in fact the turbulent time in Bhutan. ULFA, BODO and KLO, the groups of disturbing bullies, the Indian insurgents intruded the Southern part of our sovereign nation. His Majesty did his best to resolve the situation through polite diplomatic means but this approach virtually made them more obdurate and courageous. In fact they began to underestimate our small sized army without realizing that it was led by our King of Destiny. On 16th December 2003, our great Fourth meticulously executed the plan that he schemed for so long. Our army led by His Majesty vanquished our bullies and fortified our national security and restored our shaken peace and harmony. Prior to the insurgent flush-out, His Majesty travelled far and wide of our country meeting the people of Bhutan in expectation of good turnout of militias. Many people with good verbal talents made promises and assured His majesty that they would send more number of militias to supplement our small sized army to face the multiple insurgent groups. Alas, the militia turnout was staggeringly low compared to the promises made by those local and regional leaders. Despite low turnout, our great Fourth did not lose his hope or courage but assured the people of the victory and continued peace and harmony. During that time, I was in my first year in teaching college and many of us wanted to join the militia but our King wanted us to study. In reflection, we either did not know the protocol of joining the militia or our Director Dr. Jagar Dorji did not give us the required information that would have given us the clear picture about how to join the militia. In either ways, I am ashamed to say that we lacked absolute commitment. Today, on this auspicious day of our great Fourth, let’s make pledge that we shall henceforth if our nation requires our service, we shall not simply offer our fake promises but we shall prove our words by action attending to any call of our national duty at any point of time. Let’s make our pledge that during the time of such crises that all of us who are able will join the militia and together as one face any might of our enemies. During those days, there were people who actually sold (metaphorically) our country to those insurgents for their personal benefits. The act of treachery by our own people was something least expected by our King. Let’s make a pledge on this auspicious day that we shall at no cost involve or act in the manner that shall breach and undermine our national peace and security. Let’s vow that we shall never commit any act of treachery even at the cost of our own lives. I make my pledge that I shall never commit any act of treachery even at the cost of my own life while I will teach my children about the act of loyalty to the king and the country. I will also teach our young people the value of our national security than the amount of benefit that we may gain through any act of treachery. The Traitor must be the term that shall gradually disappear from our Bhutanese list of vocabularies and I make my pledge that I shall teach the values of loyalty and patriotism to the younger generation who will of course be the future of our nation. At 16, our great Fourth became the youngest leader in the world and he further amazed the world by his profound concept of Gross National Happiness. The GNH is a philosophy of development that actually contradicts with the GDP. Bhutan has been guided by this profound principle over four decades and today the world around try to emulate us because what we have achieved through GNH is something that has been very elusive even to those richest nations in the world. The GNH is based on four pillars: Good Governance, Preservation and promotion of culture, sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development and preservation and conservation of our natural environment. I am of a view that we have championed in the area of preservation of Environment and culture. However, there is a lot of thing that we need to work in the area of socioeconomic development and good governance. To me personally, we must do a lot in achieving the pillar of good governance. Quality of governance is mostly undermined by the corruption especially in the area of personnel recruitment and promotion. First thing that we need to do is to break the trend of job nepotism, cronyism and corruption in general. If we can do that, we can actually improve the quality of public service, productivity of the civil servants and efficient use of public budgets. If these things are properly put in place, we can actually achieve the pillar of Good Governance and with the Good Governance in place, anything is achievable. Further, as His Majesty stated, our attitude is all that matters and I am of a view that there is a serious need to improve in the attitude of both our Public servants and corporate workers because if their attitude is not right, nothing will be right. Therefore, let’s all make this pledge on this auspicious day that we shall never involve in any corrupt practices be it in recruitment of human resource personnel, or in using the Government funds. Let’s all put our national interest before our personal benefit while we must strive to watch our attitude during our discharge of public duty. Finally, on this auspicious day, I would like to assure our great Fourth that our nation is in the right hand. I have had few audiences with your son, our present King and I have no doubt that Your Majesty has bestowed upon our King all your peerless leadership traits. His Majesty himself has claimed that the King like the great Fourth has never been born before and shall never be born again. However, with my experiences under His Majesty’s reign over last nine years, our King has emanated parallel leadership traits of your Majesty. Thank you our great Fourth for the most priceless gift in the form of our present King to the people of Bhutan, who will definitely guide our country from strength to strength and ensure perpetual peace and prosperity while our national esprit de corps shall always remain intact. On this auspicious day, I make my pledge to serve your Prince, my King, with unflinching dedication and loyalty. I had an honor to join my first job when his Majesty became the Fifth King in 2006. As His Majesty marks his 9th year of reign, I take pride to celebrate my 9th year of service to the Tsa-wa-sum. If I continue to serve as civil servant, I make my pledge that I shall discharge my duty with utmost sincerity and integrity. If I join politics, I make my pledge that I shall never politicize our national interest. I shall always put my King and the country before my Party or personal agenda while general welfare of the people of Bhutan shall always be my priority. If I become a businessman, I make my pledge that I shall never involve in any business that would undermine the security of our sovereign country. I would always put forefront my national interest before my material benefits. If I become a scholar or researcher, I make my pledge that I shall continue to advocate Majesty’s profound concept of GNH and I would strive to share with other scholars so that it can bear global fruits in many years down the lane. Above all, I make my pledge that I shall always be a loyal subject of my King and conscientious citizen of Bhutan ensuring that my every action and thought is watched closely so that at the terminal end of my life, I shall have a reason to smile and feel proud for the life that I have lived in the best interest of my King, country and my own self. Long live our Kings and May Bhutan and her People Continue to be blessed under the benevolent rule of their Majesties in many years to come. Palden Drukpa Lha Gaylo! Author: Kuenden Valiant Source: Every View Counts

Is Prostration Along the Highways Safe?

Is Prostration Along the Highways Safe?

I know what I am going to share would definitely attract criticisms from you all and you may even accuse me of being Anti-Buddhist. I have been pondering over this decision for quite some time and eventually I made my bravest decision to share my view against the new religious trend of prostrations along our highways.

First and foremost, let me clarify my readers that I am in fact a very practical and rational Buddhist. My parents are Buddhist, my family members are all Buddhist and there is no question about my faith. I follow the teachings of Buddha especially that dwells on four immeasurable or limitless. I believe that true Buddhism is being humane and living in harmony with the humanity. Hence, what I share here does not indicate any intention of blasphemy against Buddhism or my disrespect to those who prostrate along the highways.

Firstly, my readers must know that the prostration along the road is neither a religious culture nor traditional practice in our country. Even the road came to Bhutan only in the late 60s and early 70s and this in itself tells us that Prostration along the road is not a traditional trend. It came into vogue in 2008 when a man started his historic prostration from Phuntsholing till Paro. He attracted both media and social attention and gradually some people started to follow him in suit. Now, more and more people are coming to the roads for prostration and the most famous incident of prostration was the one initiated by a group of civil servants in the recent week from Paro till Thimphu. I am sure that many more in future will come to the roads for prostrations but the question we need to ask is- is it a healthy trend for our roads that see inexorable rise in traffic congestions every year?

It takes so much of courage and devotion to prostrate along the roads for tedious hours against the odds of weathers. Only the brave and highly devoted souls would be able to do that and there is doubt about it. If I am not wrong, one of the sole purposes of prostration along the roads is to cleanse one’s defilements and shed sins. It is like the cliché that there is no gain without pain and of course it may be true. I have no complaint against those who prostrate in front of stupas, statues, monasteries, temples and shrines because they neither risk their lives nor that of other people who drive along the roads.

In a recent time when the group was prostrating along the Paro-Thimphu highway, vehicles had to be slowed down when they near the group prostrating by the road. You and I know that especially when we are in hurry or on move to attend some emergencies, we often have to rush at high speed. During such time, there is a higher probability that we may either hit those who prostrates or have to dodge from them that may put us at danger. In either ways, lives are at stake.

 You know, when the group approached the flyover bridge in Thimphu, there was a media personnel with a video camera, who was actually covering the group prostrating along the express highway. A long queue of vehicles had to slow down suddenly for the safety purpose. If it was for one time, I am sure that the commuters would accept the situation but if such trend goes on, I don’t think our people who are generally aggressive would have that patience to tolerate the similar situations. I believe that media, too has the responsibility not just to present the positive sides of the prostration and glorify the deeds of those who prostrate along the express highway but also to present the grave risk entailed both for those who prostrates and road users.

Prostrations along the roads involve infliction of pain to self as well as pose risk to those who drive along the roads. Buddha never taught us the cleansing of defilement, sins and accumulation of merits through self-torture. He tried the practice of asceticism leading a life on just few grains of rice but it never worked out for him. He eventually gave up and got new insight into his practice so called the middle-path. The middle path for those who prostrates along the highways could be prostrating in their shrines, temples, around stupas and other holy sites but definitely not on the roads. 

Being religious does not mean seeking attention of the commuters through conspicuous prostrations along the highways. If it was out of sheer religious motivation, it should be done somewhere in private and quiet places, where you can actually draw inspiration from your environment itself. Noisy and dusty roads would never serve the purpose of motivation but rather it would irk and compel them to curse the men behind the wheels. This would only make their fruits of hard work futile.

I sense this approach as a sheer act of ignorance and lack of proper reasoning. If higher accumulations of merits demand such harsher practices, I would suggest them to prostrate along the trekking and hiking trails in the country so that they won’t have much disturbance to our smooth flow of traffic and the safety of the road users won’t be compromised while they can actually have unhindered prostrations along the trials. There won’t be any people who would occasionally stop by them and waste their precious time of prostration with their chats and banter. Further, they can also prevent people like me who would look it from the other side of the coin and instead of appreciation, darts at them the critical comments on the potential risks entailed for the general public.

I know, in general, we are inveigled by our dogmatic Buddhist views and it will be difficult for me to convince you with my socially beneficial views, which contradict your blindly inherited religious dogma. I am told that my criticisms against our religious fallacies would de-merit my virtuous deeds and I would be doomed in my next life. I guess I deserve that but I take my firm stance and dare to question the creators that doing something without proper thinking and understanding won’t deliver the worst nightmare in our next life. My part is to throw views for social safety but it is your discretion to decide on my opinion.

Finally, I plead with the authorities concerned to kindly give a second thought on this rising trend of prostration along the highways. If we encourage such trends, I am sure there would be more and more people who would come to the roads to prostrate and accumulate good karma.

Source: Every View Counts

Author: Kuenden Valiant    

Academic Excellence Alone is not the Cause of Success!

          You May Become the Next Mr. Pema Tshering 

It was my dream that the moment I was able to set up my own blog page, I would write something about this inspirational person who I have known since my childhood days. If there ever was a man who I have known like the back of my hands, he is none other than Mr. Pema Tshering, the CEO of the High Quality Group of Companies (Though his line of business has not yet assumed the legal title of the group of Companies yet he has achieved that status in his own rights.) At 32 years of age, to my best knowledge, he is the richest and most enterprising young man from my village.

Many may wonder how he has actually inherited such an enormous size of wealth and how he has achieved so much at such a tender age. Well, it is neither an inherited wealth nor accumulated one through unscrupulous means and ways. It is a fruit of his sheer hard work and absolute business brilliance. He is neither a product of Harvard business school nor a result of hard earned academic excellence but rather an epitome of determination and great ambition. When many followed the great advice of their parents in the pursuit of academic excellence that would lead to the path of success, he simply ignored what many thought was the magic wand instead he chose what his heart desired most: his passion for painting. In simple term, he simply treaded the road less travelled by the people. After his basic education, in spite of his academic success, he joined the Traditional School of Thirteen Arts and Crafts and got his Diploma after six vigorous years of training in the Painting discipline.

Somebody just mentioned to me that Late Dasho Rimpoche built his Tashi Empire with the initial capital investment of just over Nu.3000/- but that was many, many years ago. I saw with my very own eyes that Mr. Pema Tshering started his High Quality Painting Gallery with his initial capital investment of Nu. 20, 000/-, that was just over a decade ago. Today, in his own rights, he has built his own business Empire and yet he has many years in hands to go and I foresee that with kind of vision he has, his business would only expand further. 

He would always say that he wishes his parents had enough lands or properties like us so that he could use them as collateral against the loans that he wish to avail for more investment to expand his business Empire. However, he managed with the least he had and turned his small Painting Gallery into a well known business brand “The High Quality” in the country today. 

The High Quality has been etched as his business brand under which he has four mega Painting Galleries each in Paro, Thimphu, Wangdue and Bumthang. He is also a great architect behind the success of High Quality Car Rental agent with a fleet of luxury vehicles that aligns well with his travel company the Bhutan land of Happiness Tours, which was solely opened to promote our Government’s vision of Gross National Happiness. His every line of business though with laden with profit objectives, he does have embedded social and national agendas. For instance, he started his High Quality Thangka Gallery to promote our traditional art and craft products through attraction of the tourist investments. This helps him to contribute to our economy in two important ways: First through the retention of hard currencies from Tourists visiting Bhutan and second through the contributions of sales and income taxes to the Government.

His motivation behind the inception of his High Quality Car Rental agent was to retain the hard currencies outflow from some of the FDI companies especially in the Tourism and Hotel sectors. When he is able to provide the quality luxury transport services to these FDI companies, he can actually prevent the outflow of hard currencies from our country. His income shall remain within the country and that can actually help him boost our economy in his own small way.

Today, he employs over more than thirty five people who enjoy the facilities and perks almost like civil servants. Compared to other privates companies, his employees are better paid with comfortable welfare schemes in place. His initiatives to improve the staff welfare system and quality working environment is a testimony to his respect to the laws of the kingdom. His contributions in terms of revenue to the government and creation of employment are worthy of praises and appreciation and there is nothing he can do to serve the Tsa-wa-sum more than what he is doing now.

My readers may wonder why I have so much of praise to this young entrepreneur. I have no reason to praise him but it has always been my dream to bring out such inspirational stories to my young readers and encourage them equally to pursue their dreams. My other intention is to debunk the theory that academic excellence is the main path toward success. Mr. Pema Tshering’s successful journey is just one of the examples I have brought here for you. If you actually conduct a survey with the group of successful people we have in our country, you would find that more than fifty percent of them have not even completed their basic education. You don’t have to delve for other prominent examples. Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Steve Jobs are the two most successful people the world has ever witnessed. However,  they have never completed their colleges.

Despite this fact and precedence, our schools and parents are always after grades and academic excellence. It is this prevailing trend in our education system that actually discriminates between good and bad students. Many a time our education system has good places for those who perform well and rejects the mediocre ones. It is most of the time these mediocre ones who either remain unemployed or they just add on to our social nuisance in the urban places. It is always disheartening to know the fact that many of our average students do not have dreams and career plans in life. When they fail to qualify for higher studies, their dreams get shattered and many tend to give up on their life.

Not many of us talk about how one can be successful even without basic educational background. Success is not always defined by education qualification but rather by how one does well in life. Success can simply mean an opportunity of doing what you love doing in life. I am not a rich man but I love doing what I do and it gives me immense contentment and that to me is a huge success in my own way. Mr. Pema Tshering never went to college but he loves doing what he does and it not just gives him continuous flow of cash into his coffer but he also feels happy with what he is doing.

Hence, my main objective of highlighting Mr. Pema Tshering’s story is simply to inspire our young people to revisit their deeply mechanized notion that academic excellence is the sole way toward success. Academic excellence alone is not the cause of success. It is your hard work and sheer determination well blended with your intelligence, which would possibly deliver you your most coveted success.

My heartfelt advice to my young readers is that if you cannot do well in academics; don’t despair because you have every chance to become the next Mr. Pema Tshering of the High Quality Group of Companies. It just takes your courage to explore what your heart desires and follow it, I am sure that you will become the next Mr. Pema Tshering.  

Source: Every View Counts

Author: Kuenden Valiant                        

  

My Paroxysm on Suicide in Bhutan!

                                                My Paroxysm on Suicide!

What comes to your mind when I mention the word “Suicide”? Does it really make any sense to you? Well, this word is associated with stigma, pain and hopelessness. Many of those who had attempted to harm themselves or conceived an idea about putting the end to their problems through self-harm would be viewed as coward or stupid by many of us who are actually normal or resilient who can manage any kind of problem situations.
Let’s imagine that there are forty five of you reading my article and all of you are normal without any serious stressors at the moment. If I asked you whether you would commit suicide or not if you were trapped in a painful or difficult situation in life, I am sure that more than 90% of you would give me an emphatic “NO” and “Never in life”. However, the underlying fact is something different. When you are normal, your judgment is crystal clear and any decision you make would be done with deep contemplation and clarity. Hence, you would know that suicide is not an option to address your difficult situations. You can think about other viable solutions other than the act of self-harm.
However, when you are stuck with hopeless situations, your judgment would be impaired often by impulsivity or you would see suicide as the only viable solution to your entire problems. During such a time, if we fail stand by them, suicide would probably be quite imminent for that person.
There was a time, after an attempted pair suicide in Thimphu- a counselor was actually giving a debriefing session to those affected people by the situation. He asked the same question that I aforementioned and almost all of them gave the expected answer “NO”. There was one particular boy who actually said that even if someone pointed a gun at him warning him to say “Yes”, he would never say it. Unfortunately and ironically, that very boy ended his life for a simple problem after three weeks of the debriefing session. It may happen to anyone of us and such hopeless situations can trigger suicidal ideation or instigate us to opt for this imprudent approach. Therefore, we cannot take such situations lightly. We must accept the fact and always make sure that necessary support is received at the right time from the right people.
Few days ago, I had an opportunity to attend the third Edition of National Counseling Conference at the SAARC Banquet hall. The theme of the conference was “On Preventing Suicide: Reaching out and Saving Lives.” It was very disturbing to know that Bhutan was ranked 25th in 2011 and 21 in 2013 in terms of global suicide rate. At the current trend, it is said that seven people commit suicide every month and the most affected people are between 15 to 45 years of age. Suicide is of course ranked as top 6 killers in the country and the most disheartening fact is that it affects the most productive and promising group of our society. Further, it intensely undermines our profound philosophy of GNH.
Nevertheless, we must not despair by the stats and apparent suicide pandemic because suicide affects even most advanced and rich countries around the world yet they refuse to accept it as their national problems while Bhutan has recently accepted the problem of this pandemic. With acceptance of the problem, we have in fact become the 29th country in the world with the national suicide prevention plan in place. The acceptance of the problem will always lead to the explorations of answers and we have in fact embarked on our journey toward fixing the jigsaws of suicide that tarnishes our happiness image in the recent time.
His Excellency the Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said that our national suicide prevention goal is Zero. This heralds a good beginning to our fight against suicide. Can we really succeed in bringing down the suicide rate to ZERO? Well, suicide is a complex interaction of various personal, economic and social issues and eradication of this pandemic would be almost possible but that does not mean that setting our goal at Zero is unreasonable. It is synonymous to our national goal of Gross National Happiness and it will guide us to achieve happiness but achievement of absolute happiness by every citizen of our country is next to impossible. Individual happiness depends on how one pursues it or views the happiness itself. This does not imply that GNH as a national goal is a shallow approach and the same principle can be applied to the prevention goal at Zero. We may not succeed in bringing down the suicide rate at zero but with acceptance and initiatives in place, at least we can bring down the rate of suicide or delay the suicide of the potential inevitable suicide victims.
Many question if we can actually prevent suicide? We can prevent suicide though we may not be able to wipe it out completely. We have a deeply rooted fallacy that if one is destined to die, no matter what we do, he or she would die. This makes us very complacent to fight against suicide. Have you ever tried to rewrite your own destiny? I tried and I guess I was successful on many occasions. We must believe that we can sometimes rewrite the misbegotten fate or destiny of others. Meaning, we can actually delay or prevent the predestined death of others or our close ones. I am not bragging my achievements: I have had helped several young people to overcome their suicidal ideations or suicide survivors to cope up with their hopeless situations. Many of them are doing really fine today. I do have some unsuccessful stories of my suicide prevention approaches. I still feel upset for my failure to save lives when I had the opportunities but more than the setbacks, I have more stories of success which give me a reason to believe that we can actually prevent or delay suicides.
One must know that the stats tell us more of our failure to prevent suicides but if you want to have the first hand facts on the success stories, you must get it from teachers, counselors and doctors who are the most significant people who are often the saviors of many people who are almost at the noose end of their untimely deliberate death. In a nutshell, we can prevent or delay suicides.
Well, I wish to share my in depth views on the prevention of suicides amongst our young people, close ones, friends and our neighbors but I fear that you may be tired by this lengthy gibber of mine. However, I would like to share a succinct opinion on some of the basics of suicide prevention. First and foremost, we must accept the fact that social-disconnect can cause isolation and loneliness.
Bhutan is a small society and by the situation itself we are inclined to share only the better part of our life with those around us while we always try to conceal the dark side of our life. This is one reason that we have many to share our hay-day while you are left alone to drown in your own ocean of darkness. For instance, many of us knew those individuals the moment their private videos went viral and everyone of us were indulged into watching and gossiping about those victims the very next moment. It is like everyone knows everyone in Bhutan and this makes us impossible to share the dark side of our life with our close ones. If you continue to bottle up your problems, it can drag you into the clutches of depression, which is one of the major causes of suicide around the globe. You must know that sometimes depression that you go through won’t even show any signs until it becomes fatal to you. Therefore, the major step toward suicide prevention is reaching out to those who are undergoing such painful situations while they can learn to accept their problems and decide to share with someone who can actually be there to attentively listen to their problem stories. Sharing of problem itself has a therapeutic impact on the one who narrates it while attentive listening of the listeners will actually make the narrators feel that at least there is someone who cares. The moment he or she feels that there is someone who cares, a new hope would dawn in him or her. Hope can actually be the impetus for his new insight into his problem that would inspire him to jettison his or her ideation of suicide. Hope can empower him or her with courage to confront the problems.
The next step of prevention is to recognize the warning signs…I guess it is too long…who would love to read such a lengthy article that doesn’t interest you? I am tempted to write about this stigmatized subject and I am sure the moment people read it, they would chastise my view but remember folks, my intention is very clear that I want to educate people about this apparently rising pandemic and help them at least to work toward preventing suicides in their community…