On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living

by Alan Noble

At root, these are the same questions because there are many ways to throw a life away, and most of them involve continuing to live. We like to think of suicide as a singular act: intentionally ending your life. But you can also destroy your life slowly through alcoholism and drug addiction. You can destroy your life through an addiction to gambling. You can destroy your life (and the lives of others) through abuse and violence. You can destroy your life passively by being so overcome with fear of failure that you cannot move. You can even destroy your life by giving up all hope and devoting yourself to fleeting, vacuous, mind-numbing pleasures. So this question is not primarily about what we normally think of as suicide. It includes that, but it also includes all the various ways we can deny the goodness of life and act in defiance of it—all the ways we can choose not to get out of bed and face the day.