Out the Other Side

I was doing some channel surfing and came across a guy who was taking about suicides.  Not a pretty topic but a relevant one.  I know nothing about him, but he looked like he had been through some things and come out the other side.
I found it really interesting what he was saying.  He said he wanted to study the topic so he examined all the suicide notes he could lay his hands on.  He said they all had one thing in common.
People did not say “my car was not shinny enough” or “my house was not as big as I wanted.”  What all the notes had in common was a declaration of a feeling of lack of significance. People felt rightly or wrongly that their input was insignificant.  They felt that the world would be better off without them.
I guess that hit a nerve with me as I feel people are what matters most rather than things.  I certainly will take things and work for them, but it is true for me that no one ever declares on their death bed that they regret not having things.  Invariably they regret not being involved with people more.
He went on to make the point that people are really good at pointing out problems, but not so good at telling good stories.  Stories of those who battled feelings of unimportance and all sorts of disease and abuse and came out the other side.
He must have been a musician as he was saying he teamed with a girl who battled depression and an eating disorder.  She came out the other side and they wrote a song together.  She performed at her school and the song was a hit with the students.  It obviously hit a nerve they could relate.  She declared at that point she really had something to say, and needed to visit other schools.
The point for me was everyone has a story and no matter how good someone may appear to be, often only loving probing gets to the way someone really feels.  Genuine non-judgemental care.   To me it is the people that count.  All else is nice, but people trump things every time for me.