To the end of my will and back again

Today I woke up feeling awful. Suicidal. I was contemplating as to whether go to the fields near my college and go hang myself. How I would do it. What I would write in my suicide note. Wondering if I were to kill myself, should I leave a statement, or just not give a shit and leave this world with no explanation.

I thought to myself - what have I got? I felt valueless. I felt completely absent in capital - social capital, financial capital, cultural capital. I didn't mean a shit to anyone really. I was insignificant.

I remember this TED talk with Tony Robbins where he states that the quickest way to become significant is through violence. Often, for those who do not like to inflict violence on others, they turn this on themselves. If they cannot be creators of their own destiny, then they at least have the ability to be the destructors of it.

I travelled to London to go use my gym and do some high intensity training. I took a load of ephedrine to get me going. I went to the gym. I looked at my weight card. Even though it was the highest it had ever been, I felt like it wasn't high enough. I was a failure. I had failed myself, my family, my friends, and my destiny. I had failed anything and anyone I had made a promise to.

And coming out of the gym, I felt angry. I wanted to self destruct. I wanted to destroy something, and the easiest thing to destroy was myself. And I remembered this site called Daily15.com - the task in my inbox for today and the day previously was to jog for 15 minutes, then spend 15 minutes in nature. And for some reason, after a high intensity workout, I decided to take that run. And to do it in nature, in the park.

As I began to run I felt angry with myself. Hateful. I was fighting myself, pushing myself. My anger was vented in self torture. Rather than jog, I ran. I ran so I was red in the face. I ran past the cherry blossom in Regent's Park, past beautiful houses and past other joggers who looked at me like I was the devil incarnate. I kept on running. I was going to run past the pain, through it, and cast myself into physical hell.

I wanted to cry as I ran. I wanted to die on this run. For this run in some ways to end it all, for my heart to explode and for me to collapse face first, leaving this earth with a splutter and a gasp. But I didn't. And as I ran and I ran, a mental change happened. This run represented my life. It was at rock bottom and I was going to fight so hard that I would either die or succeed. That's all I cared about.

And as I spent what seemed an eternity getting to 15 minutes, I eventually got there. I had run about 3km, or 1.8 miles, around the perimeter of the park. My body spent from both a run and some high intensity exercise, I walked into the park itself.

Things seemed different. I was no longer angry. My ego had left. The plants seemed beautiful and I could feel the wind on my face. This world was no longer a mocking world, mocking me for my lack of things. It was my world, part of who I am.

I lay on the grass and looked at the sky. The grass was damp. I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, feeling the breeze cast over me like I was one and the same with it. I was happy. I needed nothing. And my life seemed worth living again.