Anybody here seen my old friend John?

College buddy of mine just celebrated his 32nd wedding anniversary on a recent Thursday and was getting a big promotion the following Tuesday when he had a heart attack that Sunday morning and died. Just like that. A funny, honorable, lovely and loved family man no more. Our mutual friend, DB, who had flown down for the celebration called me Monday afternoon and told me what happened. I couldn’t believe it. Stunned and numb; none of us could.

Can you tell me where he's gone?

But a billion shattered pieces still need to be picked up, and they are, or at least some of them are, and life goes on. I’d been having a really hard time accepting the 'benign indifference of the universe,' or at least the bloody comical and ironic timing of it – so I went into the city to meet DB for dinner to try to make sense of it all. We agreed on Capitol Grill on Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, and the place is jam-packed when I walk in at eighto'clock on a weekday. He’s standing at the bar, amid the happy laughter, and as I’m about to say hello he says “John killed himself.”

I burst into tears, and wept right there on his shoulder, sobbing all the way back to 1979.

I found out much later about Imposter Syndrome which isn’t a mental disease, per se, but can be defined as more of a psychological condition. It’s a feeling of inadequacy, despite evident and tangible success. 'Imposters' suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that overrides any external proof of their competence. A lot of times the only way they see out of the chaos and pain is to end it.

And it's more common than you think: studies show that up to 70% of individuals will experience this phenomenon at least once in their professional lives, including such well-known celebrities as Tom Hanks and Maya Angelou.