Why Seung-Hu Cho Needed to Kill

"You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option."

So are the words of a desperate, lonely, hateful young man who felt that his only need was to kill others that had no chance of fighting back. So was the situation with needs that went on unmet for years. Needs to be loved by others. Needs to be respected by others. When those needs were finally gratified, they were over compensated to a sick, extreme degree.

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today."

He desperately needed to be respected, to be loved, to respect himself, see himself as a conquerer, someone to be feared...a god. Why? Because for years he felt less of a person, of an individual than anybody else. And as the days, weeks, years went by, he sank into a deeper hole inside himself. A hole that would be filled to over flowing against a world that refused or couldn't figure out a way to fill it in the first place.

"But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option."

Years of redirecting the rejection as the fault of others gave him only one option in his mind. To over strike back.

"The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Cho decided to focus on others as the cause of his emotional torment, instead of taking responsibility for it himself. That allowed him to see himself as an underdog, a victim, and in the end, a homicidal martyr.

"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs."

"Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough.

"Those weren't enough to fullfil your hedonistic needs. You had everything."

Who were the ones that Cho sought love and respect from? His school mates, friends, acquaintances, even teachers. They were the ones that had everything he wanted. They had the friends, the attention, the respect of those around them. But he also witnessed apathy, excess, the indulgence of things possessed by others that he did not and/or could not possess for himself.

"You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

In his self-absorbed mind, he was the victim, everyone else was the aggressor. That thought made him feel special, unique, someone who had every right to be rescued by his own visions of retribution against the world. Visions where the tables were turned and he was the aggressor, the avenger of the injustices wrought against him by everyone else.

"You've had everything you want."

"This didn't have to happen."

"The time came and I did it. I had to do what I did."

And in the end, he did do it. He compensated himself to the nth degree by making himself the all powerful life-taker, where the world would fear and respect him, and the world's rejects would look up to him with admiration.

Michael Crespo, Need-Therapist
Author of "Succeed thru Need: The Power of Solomonics"
Founder and Creator of the Science of Solomonics