Lies

This open letter from a widow whose husband recently killed himself hits close to home. (If you can’t get past the paywall, I’m also attaching it as a PDF here.) He was an attorney, and that’s what I’m trying to become right now. The letter is titled “Big Law Killed My Husband,” and I’m expecting to work in Big Law for a while after law school. She says that he lacked “self-compassion,” and I’ve found that the same is true of me.

What struck me most about the letter, though, is the part about why she thinks he did it: “Simply put, he would rather die than live with the consequences of people thinking he was a failure.”

This man believed, first, that failure was worse than death. And second, that the only way to avoid failure was to die. Both of these are lies from hell.

I can tell that I’m wired similarly to the way this man was. I am predisposed to believe these same lies that he believed. I pray that God won’t let me.