When you are facing your demons in life it's often hard to see any reasons to live. It's like looking into your shattered heart and all you can see inside is broken pieces with no way to mend them.

As a challenge, we decided to ask everyone on the team what their five personal reasons are for continuing to live:

By AmandaTayteTait

1. Music because it continues to save my life every day
2. Stoning :P
3. My friends (they are like family to me even though they stress me to bits)
4. This account( it's given me something beyond myself to care about)
5. Rain. (The sound and feel of the raindrops on my skin sort of makes it all worth it at times :) )

By -spiritually

1. To keep learning stuff and be smart
2. To find true love
3. To find out what true happiness feels like
4. To move to Long Beach (CA) and have a dog and live in a little house and walk on the beach every morning
5. To get hella famous and be a really good movie director and have everyone loving my movies, and I'll use my money to raise awareness for mental health stigma, LGBTQ+, poverty, and more

By ShadowsWithinMe

1. To share love.
2. To make the world a better place.
3. To fight my inner demons and shame them (because they don't deserve any control of my life).
4. To explore my interests.
5. (personally, for me) to live out what God has in store for me.

By CrazyLovelyMe

1. Because God
2. To be crazy and be yourself
3. Spread love
4. Do what you wanna do
5. Be one big family with your internet friends
Bonus: Watch Anime :D

By KilimanjaroUSA

1. What's the point of dying?
2. Have to see the world.
3. Have to be the best runner in the world.
4. Have to have a family.
5. Don't want to hurt my family.

By eleutheromanial

1. The people around me
2. helping others
3. art
4. writing
5. my brother and sister                                                            

By saintc

1. I care enough about myself to live
2. I still have many things left to do
3. I have the courage to face life
4. I want to experience all that life has to offer and there are many experiences I haven't had yet which I want to have.
5. I have a love of life and all that it has to offer.

By _Black-Rabbit_

Why do I keep living? Well, that's a very deep question to ask, firstly. But recently, especially, I've been wondering about a similar question. This may be personal, and differ from person to person, but I suppose this one's mine and I'd share it with you guys.

WARNING: I am very blunt with my opinions and I'm sure at least some of them will offend you. I'm sorry, I'm really not the type to sugar coat things. If that's what you're looking for, don't read mine. If you are not that open to opinions, this is your final warning. DON'T READ.

I'm not forcing you to change. I'm not your husband, I'm not your wife, I'm not your parents. If you disagree, then fine. I really couldn't care less. But bless those who are open to opinions. Ok. If you still want to read, here goes:

1. Being useful
Other than ducks, this is my second greatest fear: just living and never being of any use to anyone or anything. I live because I know I have a purpose. I know my purpose, but I suppose it's irrelevant to elaborate on such. Since this is about you guys, so I'll ask you this: what's your purpose?

Now don't answer "I have no use here." I may be considered as an idealist, but let me tell you this: everyone has a purpose. Sounds cheesy? But I'll elaborate.

Let's picture the world as a sort of a huge organization. Every country has a leader, namely Mr. Barack Obama. Then there are the huge companies, with bosses.

Nate to break it to you, not everyone can be a leader, though a leader can come from anyone. "So, are we, the non-leaders, useless?"

NO. We, the non-leaders, are not useless. You think a company can run without assistants? You think presidents can eat without farmers?

"But we don't work! Then are we useless?"

Then I'll ask you another question: "Have you reflected? Why couldn't you work?"

Don't bullshit me with disabilities. Look at Nic Vujicic. Don't bullshit me with broken family. Look at Adolf Hitler. Don't bullshit me with talentless. Not all job requires you to be smart. The biggest question is: Do YOU want it? Do YOU want to be useful?

2. People that I love and people that love me
This is pretty straight forward: I live for people that I love and those who loves me. I think people who do suicide are straight up stupid. Yes, I'm blunt. Fight me bigots.

Around 90% of people who commit suicide regretted it pre-death. They're selfish people that go all like "oooh I'm so suffering. My friends hate me. I'm too pressured. I'mgonnakillmyselfbai."

What about your family?

"My parents hate me. My siblings hate me."

So...you're saying your friends hate you. Your family hates you. Everyone hates you. Fight me, bigots, for I'm gonna be blunt again:

"What the hell did you do to cause them ALL to hate you?"

Because if they ALL, every 7 billion people on this bloody world hates you, then you're a fucking conceited bitch that blames everyone but yourself.

Stop blaming everything on others. Try to reflect. Always try to reflect. Stop being so closed to yourself. I know so many kind people out there so stop giving me that bullshit. I'm done. Next one:

3. Trying all the new stuff and wonders
Hey! There're so many things out there to see. Let me say that the world is way more beautiful than your closed mind is able to see. If you can see it, lucky you. If you can't, SUCKS TO BE YOU.

It's all a matter of perspective. I once watched this kid movie with my little cousin where there's a trash queen. Literally. Queen of trash. She sang "it's just a matter of your point of view."

Maybe some people will say "ew. What's so pretty about trash? She stinks!" but others are more of "but her face is pretty! And she sings nicely. And she's very kind." See what I mean? If you can't see the good in things, then it's your grief, not mine.

4. Blessing other people with your presence
Now, this may sound like "being useful", but there's a different sense in this one. It means the little things you do that make others happy. You cry every day saying that all you want is to be happy. Then how selfish are you if you can't make others happy?

5. Be happy
Seriously. After all, these are done: be happy. Life is a curse, but also a blessing. It's short, so rather than crying and be all depressed, why not see the little things and enjoy while it lasts?

Once more, it's all your choice. Are you agreeing with me? Or are you angry now? To be honest, I couldn't care less. If you're blessed, be blessed. If you want to be sad, be sad. I'm just stating my opinions and trying to help. From here onwards, it's all your choice.

If you have something to say to me personally, PM me at @_Black-Rabbit_ and I will help you. I don't care if you disagree and demanding for an explanation, or if you just want a small talk. Anything at all. But, if you become too terribly obnoxious, I'll ignore. Sounds fair?

Check out the awesome book by TalkingHelps called reasons to survive.