8-years ago, CHP Officer Kevin Briggs talked this young man out of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.
That young man’s name is Kevin Berthia.
Today he is 30 years old and married with 2 children.
This week he presented Officer Briggs with an award on behalf of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
The story of how Officer Briggs talked Kevin down is remarkable.
As you can see in the picture, Kevin is literally one step away from jumping to his death. But for more than hour, the officer listened to Kevin pour his heart out about his troubles and told him, “I know you think things are bad, but they can get better.”
Kevin says, “Officer Briggs never made me feel guilty for the situation I was in. He made feel like, I understand why you are here, but there are alternatives”
Kevin is just one of countless lives Briggs has saved over his 23 year career.
Briggs, who was promoted to Sergeant five years ago, is humble about what he does. He says, ”they make the decision, when they step back over that rail it takes a tremendous amount of courage”
I salute Sergeant Briggs!
Photo: The San Francisco Chronicle, John StoreyGod Bless you.
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true friendship is being comfortable enough to openly discuss pornography with each other
classy pornography
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My lovely followers, please follow this blog immediately!
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honeyalmondmilk asked: What kind of job would you have wanted?
I want a job where the highlight of my week isn’t transferring 132 contacts from my boss’s personal phone into Outlook. I want a job where I am not asked to look up book prices on Amazon. I want a job where I am not told to write at an 8th grade level for adults. I want a job where the words cohort and constituted aren’t off-limits because they are “too big”. I want a job where a semicolon isn’t off-limits because it makes grammar too complicated for comprehension. I want a job where I am not a secretary. I want to work for a company that I don’t need to fake a smile everyday. I want a job where I don’t wake up with a stress headache every morning — a headache that is not caused by the stress of the work but the stress from having to a fake a smile from the minute I step into the parking garage until I leave the parking garage 8 hours later. I want to work for a company that isn’t simultaneously declaring its love for the city it is located and boasting about its accomplishments for that city but also treats the people of the city as beneath it. I want to work for a company that treats the homeless population around corporate headquarters humanely and doesn’t generalize all homeless people as nuisances. I want to work for a company where things like “Is there any good thing about being a man” is spoken in non-ironic tones because men feel a need to wait in an elevator until all the females leave because they must “protect” us. I want to work for a company that doesn’t cause me to count the hours and minutes before I can leave as soon as I walk in the door every morning. I want to work at a company that doesn’t make me hate everyone around me because I am miserable. I want to work in a job that doesn’t make me want a drink as soon as I step through the doors.
I want to work in a position with a cause other than profit. I want to work in a position that allows me to enter a community and learn about that community and work with that community to better that community. I want to work for a company that is actively trying to change the world. I want to work for a company where I can acknowledge and voice my passions. I want to work for a company where I am not seen as a mini version of my mom. I want to work for a company where I am given an identity beyond my department and badge number. I want to work for a company where I am using what I am learning in school and my extracurricular activities. I want to work for a company where people are the focus not money. I want to work for a company that keeps me busy. I want to work for a company that keeps me busy with work that is meaningful and not work that 8 year-old cousin can do. I want to work for a company where my work matters. I want to work in a position that I am excited about and jump out of bed for in the morning.
Ideally, I would be working at the Department of State or the US Agency of International Development (USAID) or an NGO — maybe one that works with refugees. I have friends who are working abroad this summer with NGOs, and they are literally living the life that I want. Something that I have passion for executing.
Look, I know I sound whiny and ungrateful. I know I could have a job that is a lot worse or no job at all. I acknowledge my position is a lot better than a lot of people. I acknowledge my privilege in being able to get this position so easily. I really do. But, right now, I am absolutely fucking miserable. I am 20 goddamn years-old and feel like my life is not my own. I feel like my life is still being driven by parents.
Everyone keeps telling me how good this will look on my resume, but it doesn’t look good for the things I am applying for. It didn’t help me in the slightest get the four Dept of State jobs I applied or the USAID job or the TOMS job or the litany of other jobs that I applied for.
People tell me I am going places because of my passion and writing skills, but the only place I am going right now is a desk in a cubicle where I can sleepwalk through my work and not have it impacted. I feel like I am wasting my life following the path my parents want for me instead of the path that I want for myself.
I feel useless and stupid. I feel stuck. I am miserable, and it is literally only the third day. How am I supposed to finish an entire summer of this shit?
And, if you got through that entire answer, I applaud and thank you.
I legitimately hate my parents right now. They can never let me be happy. They forced me into my college choice. They have forced me into a job I fucking hate with my entire being for the second year in a row. I can’t even have the time that was supposed to be my own to relax and get away from this shit. I have to spend my long weekend with my mom “working in my closet”. I hate her. I hate her so much right now.
Fuck this fucking shit. Apparently, I can’t go home (aka Ann Arbor) because I need to organize my closet. This is absolutely ridiculous. I’m already in a job I fucking hate 5 days a week, but that isn’t enough for my mom. No, she also has to fuck up my weekends and make me miserable then too!
The women of Souli, according to folklore, collectively jumped from the cliff of Zaloggo to avoid the Ottoman Turkish army. Their politicization of suicide still haunts the Greek social imaginary.
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“Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.” — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (via araberber)
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“Is it me you love
or the me you want to see,
the me I’m not yet?”
— Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson (via tylerknott)
(via tylerknott)
sometimes I make fun of bieber or 1d fans for how ridiculous they look when fangirling/stalking them
but then I remember beatlemania and…
how one time
a girl almost died
because she tried to
mail herself to the beatles in a huge box
beatlemania was and is
seriously
insane
(via re-questdenied)
fairy house 1 by indisguise on Flickr.
(via lajoiedespetiteschoses)
“Run my dear, from anything that may not strengthen your precious budding wings. Run like hell my dear, from anyone likely to put a sharp knife into the sacred, tender vision of your beautiful heart.” — Hafiz (via freedominlibya)
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