Every 40 seconds, someone takes their own life.

About 800,000 people worldwide every year, although some estimates put that number closer to 1 million.

Suicide is the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 29 and for every suicide that results in death, there are as many as 40 attempted suicides.

Australians make up a disproportionate amount of these.

After the last few years these statistics have gotten much worse.

World Suicide Prevention Day is held annually on September 10th. But every other day of the year what an you do to help reverse this problem?

One of the video’s I’ve shared the most over the years with people online who are struggling is “Please Don’t Kill Yourself” by Clayton Jennings

One I discovered more recently than that one is “Fake Smile” by Josh Higham.

Both of them in part led to me creating my own. Everyone connects with different things differently and as much as I pray both of those videos continue to help people choose one more day I felt it important to leave my own legacy. Which is one of the reasons I created “Identity (Who Am I?)”. At a recent public screening in Melbourne for the Focus on Ability short film festival it was scheduled just before another film of someone asking the same question. If you haven’t seen it yet here it is.

For some music connects more than spoken word. I’m still working on getting some of the lyrics I’ve been writing put to music and recorded as songs. In the meantime I created a playlist for someone which I have already shared with many others. If you need some musical encouragement to keep going today or any other day here’s a playlist of 30 songs. One for every day of the month, well this month anyway.

I’ve got another article scheduled to be published soon for more on this topic so stay tuned for that. Until then you are loved, and valuable.