Narrative about a lawyer's personal crisis and Brazilian paraglide experience

supervision. 3. “Living Well” (Barron’s , March 20, 2006, Suzanne McGee). 4. Goldian VandenBroeck, ed. From Less Is More: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity Inner Traditions, 1996). 3] Dodging Bullets =» FEAR-SETTING AND ESCAPING PARALYSIS Many a false step was made by standing still. — FORTUNE COOKIE Named must your fear be before banish it you can. —YODA, from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL T veny feet and closing. “Run! Ruuuuuuuuuun!” Hans didn’t speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough—haul ass. His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock, and he drove his chest forward toward 3,000 feet of nothing. He held his breath on the final step, and the panic drove him to near unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges, closing to a single pinpoint of light, and then ... he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountaintop, and thousands of feet above the resplendent green rain forest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana, Hans Keeling had seen the light. That was Sunday. On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, Los Angeles’s posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice. For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years? He had once slept under his desk at the office after a punishing half-done project, only to wake up and continue on it the next morning. That same morning, he had made himself a promise: two more times and I’m out of here. Strike number three came the day before he left for his Brazilian vacation. We all make these promises to ourselves, and Hans had done it before as well, but things were now HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013823