Someone I knew drove to the middle of a bridge yesterday, got out of her car, and jumped 200 feet off the bridge.

She was pregnant.

A few months ago, a friend of mine who is CEO of a Silicon Valley company left the car running in his garage while he was in it. He was fortunately found, taken to the hospital, and survived, after he passed out.

Nobody wants to kill themselves. But we all have a monster inside. Sometimes the monster takes over. We can’t control it at that point.

It’s never the fault of the business failing. It’s never the fault of a partner or spouse breaking up with you.

It’s never the fault of parents who abused. Or of life feeling like a mountain too large to climb.

It’s not your fault either. The monster is in everyone. We often medicate to keep the monster down. Or drown ourselves in addictions that don’t help us but numb the monster.

In January 2006 I woke up at 3am on the intersection of 49th and Lexington after having too much to drink and cars swerving around me in the rain. One example of many in the past twenty years. I’m lucky.

There’s no way to kill the monster. It’s there inside of you right now. We all feel it.

Our unhappiness feeds it. Keeping physically emotionally mentally and spiritually healthy starves it but won’t kill it. It waits.

Claudia just told me: imagine you have a spoon but the spoon is too heavy to feed yourself with. You can only hold it out and feed someone else with it. Everyone has to feed each other with these spoons else we won’t eat and we won’t live.

Evolution favored the generations of our species that learned to feed each other with these too-heavy spoons.

Often you can’t feed yourself. The monster is out of your control. But you can always feed another. Find someone today to feed.

Not by talking to them. Not by teaching. Not by demanding or blaming or yelling or advising. The monster feeds off of all of that.

But by listening.

Listening is power. @jaltucher (Click to Tweet!)

Listening teaches you, feeds another, makes their story more beautiful, builds connections, starves the monster inside both, expresses love.

Saves lives.

James Altucher has built and sold several companies, and failed at dozens more. He’s written twelve books, and The Power of No is the book to RULE THEM ALL. (Although he is also fond of Choose Yourself.) He’s an investor in twenty different companies. He writes every day. He doesn’t have enough friends. Still interested in knowing him? Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Image courtesy of postbear.