(Editor’s note: This esposde is based on chapter 2 of the book “After the Fall: How Owen Lost Everything and Found Waht Truly Matters” by Upendra Mishra.)
Before Owen can move forward, he has to turn around and face the patterns that have followed him his entire life—the rise, the near-arrival, and the inevitable collapse right before the finish line. This chapter isn’t about failure in the obvious sense. It’s about something far more frustrating: getting close to everything you want, over and over again, and never being able to stay there.
Owen is strong. He’s resilient, disciplined, intelligent, and deeply loyal. He knows how to work, how to survive, how to excel when the pressure is on. On paper, he has all the ingredients for success. And yet, something always breaks down at the final moment. The deal doesn’t close. The peace doesn’t last. The summit never becomes home.
What makes this pattern so painful is that it doesn’t live in just one area of his life. It shows up everywhere—especially in love. Owen loves intensely, almost overwhelmingly. He chases connection with everything he has, only to pull away when intimacy demands that he stay. Not because he doesn’t care, but because something inside him can’t rest. Even when love is real, a voice whispers, This can’t be it. There has to be more.
From his earliest crushes to his deepest relationships, the cycle repeats: passion, effort, closeness—then distance. Even marriage and family don’t escape the pattern. His mind pushes him to rise. His body fuels the climb. But his heart remains fractured, unable to fully integrate peace, intimacy, or enoughness.
This chapter marks the moment Owen stops running. For the first time, he sees that the same force driving him forward is also holding him back. And instead of chasing the next peak, he makes a different choice: to go to the root. No shortcuts. No escape.
Chapter 2 is about that decision—the moment you stop climbing higher and start going deeper.
