I'd take it.
The worst of it, really, is knowing I once had a life where yeah, I wasn't making an exceptional amount of money, but it was the most I'd ever earned in my life. I was comfortable, and could usually buy anything I wanted within reason (less than $500) for a given month, without having to think about it and not balancing the checkbook for a couple of years.
So I know that lifestyle is long gone, and the only way I'll ever see it again is if I won a lottery or something (but I don't play). Some people though, they go through a change like that, can't cope with it, and end it all. I don't think I'm any better than them, but it all depends on your personal outlook of what's important. We didn't have money when I was growing up, so this is only slightly worse than how things were when I was a kid.
[hugs]
Like you, I grew up with little money. There were days at a time where my family and I would go without food. Sometimes no power, other times no water. Often no car, several times, no home. We tried our best to learn and grow in that environment, and through it all I kept on going. I was a voracious reader, and absorbed every little tidbit I could to use towards my education. I excelled in school, blew the doors off every test I took. I had been born a preemie, and the doctors were concerned my development would be poor, intellectually and emotionally, but by the time I was 3 I was reading, by 8 I was reading books meant for college students, so I showed them that not only would I learn, I would learn
faster than everyone else. My future was assured, or so it seemed.
Quite often I worry about my own future. I don't treasure money, but I do realize its usefulness, and necessity. Unfortunately, the parts of life I do, or would, treasure aren't available to me, and as I get older, and my health problems increase, I fear that my life will end up having no value to myself. My life has amounted to very little so far, and not for lack of trying. I've spent the vast majority of it serving others to my great personal detriment. I have no money, no job, no relationship, no real freedom. I never thought it would be like this, not in a million years.
In high school, I was the smart guy, the one you could copy your answers from during the test and know you were going to pass it with flying colors. I was the resourceful one, the one who was going to go places. I even believed it myself. I was the good boy. I always did what I was asked, and knew that I didn't have to worry, things would work out and I would have a good education/career/relationship, and to look back on the wreckage that is this life I've lead is just heartbreaking for me. I didn't even get off the ground, much less soar to new heights.
I would never contemplate suicide as a viable solution, since that would actually go
against my desire for a long, happy life, but like you explain, I can see why some can't cope with the idea, and choose to end it all.
Futility frustrates me.
