Editor’s note: In this powerful and deeply personal work, author Upendra Mishra invites readers into the quiet unraveling of a life that seemed outwardly successful—but was quietly fracturing beneath the surface. Drawing from ancient wisdom, modern psychology, and lived experience, this book is not about achieving more—it’s about becoming more whole.
In the excerpt below, Mishra sets the tone for a journey that is equal parts memoir and meditation—where the true measure of success is not wealth or recognition, but inner clarity, connection, and peace. The book will be available on Amazon on June 5, 2025.
Introduction: A Life Examined
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you.”
–Rumi
This is not a book about success. Not the kind we usually mean, anyway.
This book is for common people as well as high-functioning professionals who are tired of cycling through burnout, failed relationships, financial ruin and spiritual confusion—and who are ready for lasting transformation.
It is a book about descent—and the slow, messy, beautiful act of returning. It is about what happens when the career fades, when the applause dies down, when the masks fall away. It is about what’s left when the deep relationship and marriage end, the children grow, the titles vanish, and the noise of ambition no longer distracts you from the silence inside.
It is, at its core, a story of one man—but not just of his rise and fall. It is the story of what he discovered after fall. And, perhaps, what all of us might discover if we dare to look at our lives not as straight lines, but as spirals—cyclical journeys of forgetting and remembering.
For Owen, the pattern had repeated itself at every level. In love, in professional career, in business, in purpose—he would climb, often with grit and brilliance, only to fall again. Just when success was within reach, it would slip away. Just when the connection felt close, it would break. No matter how high he rose, something always pulled him back down. The cycle was relentless—and he couldn’t figure out why.
Until now.
This book is the story of how he finally saw the pattern for what it was—and how, through truth, presence, and deep internal work, he began to break it.
In March of 2008, facing what he called the “final fall,” Owen did something rare. He didn’t chase a new goal or blame the world around him. He sat down, picked up a pen, and wrote a vow—not to become someone better, but to become someone true. That moment marked the beginning of a different kind of success. One not measured by bank balances, but by inner balance. Not by applause, but by quiet integrity.
This book is the story of that vow.
It is also a meditation on what it means to be whole.
You will find no grand sermons here—only honest reflections drawn from ancient Indian epics, Western philosophy, modern psychology, and the raw material of lived experience. Owen’s journey is interwoven with the Mahabharata, Upanishads and Marcus Aurelius, with Daniel Kahneman and Carl Jung, with the Bhagavad Gita and The Untethered Soul. Each of these helped him peel away a layer of illusion. Each helped him ask: Who am I beneath all this doing? What does it mean to live truthfully? To love without clinging? To let go without collapsing?
It is also the story of two remarkable women—Anamika in India and Maria in Mexico—each a soulmate in her own way, who helped Owen see himself more clearly when he could not. Their presence, though separated by time and geography, became mirrors through which his journey toward truth quietly unfolded.
This is not the story of a man who became enlightened. It is the story of a man who learned how to be at peace with himself—and who continues to learn, one quiet day at a time. Because healing, as Owen discovered, is not the final destination. It’s a rhythm. A practice. A conversation with the self that never really ends.
Whether you are in the middle of your own fall, rebuilding from one, or simply beginning to question the life you’ve built, this book is for you. It is a reminder that you are not alone. That even in the darkness, there is something in you that still wants to rise. That, perhaps, the greatest journey of all is not out into the world, but back into yourself.
And so, we begin.
Upendra Mishra
April 30, 2025
