Jeremy Lin Reveals How Friend's Suicide Changed Him
When Jeremy Lin realized that the suicide rate at his former high school had gained national attention, he decided to speak up.
An article titled "The Silicon Valley Suicides" featured in The Atlantic this month reveals an alarming fact about the two high schools in Palo Alto, California.
"The 10-year suicide rate for the two high schools is between four and five times the national average," the article revealed about Henry M. Gunn High School and Palo Alto High.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Lin, the 27-year-old Charlotte Hornets point guard, attended Palo Alto High and took to Facebook to share his own experiences attending the institution.
"When I was a freshman at Palo Alto High, a classmate who sat next to me committed suicide. I remember having difficulty registering what had happened," Lin revealed. "A year later, a friend committed suicide. I saw up close the pain and devastation of their loved ones and in my community."
The athlete said he began to see that people bury pain beneath the surface.
"I realized then that there are so many burdens we don't see the people around us carrying. I told myself that I would try to be more sensitive and open to other people's struggles," he wrote. "We may not have the answers to how to completely solve these issues, but we can take more time to really listen to each other, to reach out and have compassion on one another."
Lin didn't pretend to have all of the answers to overcome suicide, but he did let people know the importance of looking beyond their accomplishments.
"I don't have any great insight and I don't know exactly what it's like to be a high school student today. I do know that I'm proud to be from Palo Alto, a resilient community that I see striving to learn how to better support and care for each other," he wrote. "I hope that my personal experience can remind someone else that they are worth so much more than their accomplishments."
The NBA star admitted that he suffered emotional struggles in high school by putting too much pressure on himself to accomplish what he thought he needed to.
"The pressure to succeed in high school is all too familiar to me. I distinctly remember being a freshman in high school, overwhelmed by the belief that my GPA over the next four years would make or break my life," he wrote. "My daily thought process was that every homework assignment, every project, every test could be the difference ... The difference between happiness and misery."
Learning to look beyond his ability to accomplish things continues to be a lesson for the basketball player.
"Separating myself from my results is not an easy lesson and I've had to relearn this in every stage of my life. The world will always need you to accomplish more, do more, succeed more," he said. "After 'Linsanity' there was the pressure to have great performances every night, to become an All-Star, to win championships. I still dream big and give my all in everything I do, but I know that success and failure are both fleeting."
Lin has made it clear that he relies on his Christian faith instead of his accomplishments to give him peace.
"When I was a rookie, I put myself through mental torment. I can't do that anymore," Lin said in a Los Angeles Times report. "So now I'm just growing more as a person spiritually and just learning to surrender it all. It gives me a lot of peace, man."
