How to save a life?

There is so much bad stuff in the world, just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. There are so many people out there who hurt others, on purpose, just because they want to. They don't even care that they hurt others, because they enjoy it. It is bad enough when you hurt someone without the intention, because even though you can apologize, the hurt will still have been there. But hurting someone while you are fully aware that this is what you are doing? This is why I don't like people - because cruelty is such a human trait.

How can you deal with the fact that there is so much bad in the world, so much bad that is caused by humans and that could be prevented if people were better? Do you just turn your head and look away? Looking away doesn't make it go away, even if it might seem that way. I can't stomach any more stories about children being murdered by their own parents. How can anyone hurt an innocent child? Why can no one prevent all the horrible things children have to go through?

It makes me so sick to my stomach that people can be so apathetic and careless with life. This is one big reason not to have any kids: Our world is not a world in which you can protect your children from harm.

I can try as I might to not read the stories, to not watch the news, but it won't change the fact that people kill other people every day. Children get hurt every day. Developing a thick skin against stories like these seems the only way to stay sane, but I don't want to have a thick skin when it comes to something like that. I don't want to be able to say "It happened, there is nothing anyone could have done." I don't want to be less empathetic and I don't want to just shut it out. I am not even the one going through horrors like these and I can barely stand the fact that these horrors exist. To have the strength to survive all that bad in the world and still want to live and make the best out of it is so admirable.

The things people do are horrible and I don't want to know how to deal with it, I don't want to have to deal with it. I want that stuff not to happen. But those horrible things will happen as long as humans exist and that just makes me want to throw up.

I am against the death penalty. I think living with the knowledge of what you did, in a life behind bars where your past is all you can think about, is much more of a punishment than death. I understand the need and want for revenge, but there is no revenge for death. Killing the murderer is not going to bring the victim back to life. The state cannot decide over life and death.

But the fact that I'm against the death penalty doesn't mean that I don't have the urge to physically hurt some of the people who hurt others so badly. I want them to feel just a fraction of the pain they inflicted. I would never act on it, because I know that it won't change anything, but how could you not feel that way? How do you not feel that way?

[This is only marginally related, but it makes me feel slightly better - to know that even though I can't change any of the bad, I can try and make it better by doing good, by being a good person. Even if I can never take all the bad away.



Save A Life Campaign]