Finding the silver lining
"The main thing they have in common is a positive attitude," says Chou Chin-hua, father of Chou Ta-kuan and founder of the Global Passion for Life Awards. While such people, like everyone else, do go through moments of shock, denial, sadness, and rage when they encounter serious setbacks, they don't let those feelings overwhelm them. They are willing to accept their circumstances and look at them from a positive perspective, and they rely on sheer strength of will to overcome their physical, economic and emotional problems.
After losing a leg to cancer, ten-year-old Chou Ta-kuan penned these words in a poem: "I still have one leg, I still want to walk through this beautiful world." Despite her paralysis and being told by doctors that she wouldn't live past 20, Liu Shu-yi was determined to earn a doctorate in physics, pushing herself day to day, minute to minute.
After being caught in a snowstorm while climbing Mt. Everest in 1996 and suffering severe frostbite, Kao Ming-ho lost all his fingers, his toes, and his nose. Despite the agony, he maintains a positive outlook. He feels blessed to have come home alive; to have been left with half a thumb, thanks to which he can still write, use chopsticks, and dial the telephone; and to still be able to walk despite having no toes. Since his recovery, Kao has continued to travel abroad and climb, filming his achievements, and has mounted successful assaults on China's famous "100 peaks."
Compared with the severe physical and psychological hardships people like the aforementioned three have suffered, "most suicide victims really haven't hit dire straits," says Wang Chung-kwei, professor of psychology at Soochow University. For example, the Tsai family of Ilan, all of whom committed suicide, still had a home and still had their siblings; their only problem was that they had difficult debts to repay. Another such case is a mother who was left with only NT$50 to her name, and not knowing how to carry on, committed suicide together with her young daughter.
Why couldn't they get jobs, or seek help from friends and family or from welfare agencies? Explaining your problems, says Wang, is the hardest part. People with a pessimistic mindset consider themselves "worthless" or think "no-one cares" when they hit a problem, and so they see the future as "hopeless." They often also lack a good social network, and to maintain what little self-respect they have, are unwilling to ask others for help, or may not know how to. They end up wallowing in depression alone, starting the downward spiral that leads to choosing to end it all. But people with an optimistic outlook see setbacks as external, temporary factors and believe in their own abilities. They regard setbacks as an opportunity to learn and grow, encouraging themselves to turn tragedy into strength, and if they really can't carry on by themselves, they'll seek outside help.
Resilience is another crucial factor in whether one can get past tragedy. "When they encounter a setback or a rebuke, some people fall into despair; similarly, encouragement and incentives can move them tremendously," says Wang. According to his analysis, each person has a different level of sensitivity to outside stimuli. Some are extremely sensitive, while others need substantial stimulation to feel any effect; such people are unafraid of being mocked, and unfazed by life's torments.
Liu Ta-chia, known as the "Taiwanese MacGyver," has had to walk on all fours since childhood, but thanks to his father's compassionate guidance he has been able to live a colorful, confident life.