Imagine Your Friend Is Dead. Now Live Like You Don't Want That To Happen.

I found out yesterday that another one of my old friends had taken their life. I say "another" because that's the second in about as many weeks. Fourth friend overall.

I used to be the Editor of CALMzine , which was produced by male suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). So I know a bit about suicide.

I often get asked, "why did they do it?" Let me tell you, there is only ever one reason why someone takes their own life: They didn't feel able to go on.

Suicide is a complex beast and there could be a myriad of factors that lead to someone no longer feeling able to continue living, or there could be just one. But the ultimate "why" is that they reached the point of no return, for them.

And it's devastating for those left behind.

But death often has a positive effect too, I find.

It brings people together; old friends reunite around their shared loss; family feuds are set aside as loved ones grieve together.

Our eyes are opened to the reality, even if only for a while, that there are more important things in life than the majority of our usual everyday concerns.

All of a sudden, we can see that there are bigger issues than who to vote for, how badly so'n'so behaved at a recent party, or the latest failure of the sports team we support.

In fact, "bigger issues " was the name of a male suicide awareness campaign in late 2015 that won scores of awards. A partnership between male grooming brand Lynx and CALM, it highlighted the contrast between society's most talked about topics and the grave reality that suicide is the biggest single killer of men under 45 .

If you're a man aged 45 or under, the most likely thing to kill you is you.

During my time at CALM, I worked with hundreds of men. They talked about how hard it was to ask for help when the expectation is for men never to need it; they talked about what it means to be a "manly" man and why they don't fit the mould; they talked about how much they wish their friend, brother, father, uncle, son had said something, anything, to let them know they were struggling.

More and more men (and women - this problem is overwhelmingly a male one, but suicide is terrible whatever the gender) are starting to talk. But for every celebrity (and thank you to those who have) that opens up about their depression or life crisis, there are hundreds of people who continue to keep their mouths shut because they don't want to bother anyone; they drink or take drugs to block it out or feel something else; they act out in rage or frustration.

Now I wonder, what a difference it would make if we made a slight change to our perspective, if we behaved all the time how we do when we hear the news that someone we care about is no longer with us.

Can we try to see life through a slightly more compassionate, more aware lens?

Can we take some time to check in with the people that are important to us, even the ones that we don't see anymore but they meant something to us once upon a time?

Because tomorrow they might be gone.

Today's world has us focussing on all the ways we are different. Tory or Labour. Gay or straight. American or not. We're dividing ourselves up and it's no wonder people feel so alone. We spend an awful lot of time grumbling about how the other side is wrong. (I for one am glad to see advertisers like Heineken trying to challenge this attitude .)

But we're all the same deep down. We just want to be happy.