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.
“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…