By Sean Garner

Campus Editor

It has been a long time since I

read anything that so moved and troubled me as the lead story on the

front page of Sunday’s Oakland Press. The headline read, “Suicides on

the rise,” and the story told powerfully disturbing anecdotes about two

men who, in the some of the toughest economic times Michigan has seen

in decades, felt their lives were spinning so far out of control that

they decided to give up all together.

One man, a 57-year-old

father of two grown children, faced the prospect of losing his job with

the inevitable additional consequence of losing his house, which he

shared with his wife and 25-year-old daughter. The other was a young

man with a four-year-old son who had recently lost his job. His

finances were so bad that he had to postpone getting married to his

fiancée, who had also been fired. In addition to the mountain of fiscal

responsibilities, the younger man was facing possible jail time due to

a drug addiction.

The article states that suicides in Oakland County are up 18 percent from a year ago.

What

struck me most about these cases were that both of these men were, in a

sense, victims of modernity. Both appeared to be decent men whose top

priority was providing a living for their families, but each were

caught up the fluid and chaotic nature of modern society.

The

younger man even went as far as to say he was doing his fiancée “a

favor” by ending his life. Such an attitude is easy to sympathize with

in a world where people are expected to be more than just sources of

love and compassion for the closest people in their lives, but are also

expected to be material providers. In tough times, it can be hard to

prioritize these roles.

Even those of us who do not have

responsibilities to anyone but ourselves. For the ambitious among us in

particular, there are always the stresses of taking all the right steps

in order to meet our goals. In tough times, these goals become more

elusive with more people fighting for fewer opportunities.

When

people become consumed by their goals, it is easy to understand why

they lose perspective. It is easy to sympathize with people who become

so determined, so single-minded, that they begin to think in

black-and-white terms: success and failure. What has me most worried is

how do so many decent people lose touch with their basic human values?

If

you asked the families of both men, I am sure they would say they would

rather have their loved one with them no matter how trying the

circumstances. They are likely to carry feelings of guilt, sorrow and

anguish for a very long time. What these struggling men forgot is that

the human consequences infinitely outweighed whatever financial turmoil

laid ahead.

While suicide is an extreme behavior that few families

will have to deal with, the factors that cause it are anything but

extreme. As times get hard, the effects of a down economy can be seen

far more deeply than in the resale value of our homes. They are

reflected in the mood and attitude of the people around us. It is easy

for a rich man to say money doesn’t matter. Most of us know, however,

it does matter. It matters a lot.

However, money only holds the

power we give it. In the richest, most prosperous nation in the history

of the world, it is easy to become attached to the real and symbolic

power of money, but as clichéd as it might sound, money has no

influence on the things that really matter.

My family is going

through fiscal hardships to some degree right now, just as I prepare to

become a successful, independent adult. My parents’ occupations right

now are tied to two of America’s most endangered industries; automotive

and computer programming. Our stocks are down, down and down. Both my

brother and I will be entering a virtually barren job market.

Some

would say I am not as well off as I used to be. However, I have a

wonderfully caring and supportive family that does not love me any less

than it ever has: I have a sharp and discerning mind with a strong

moral center, and I keep growing and becoming a better person each and

every day. If any of those things were not the case, then I would

indeed be in a crisis.