text: Annette Myers worked her way out of nothing; she was born into a lower-class family; her father was a laborer who worked two jobs; her mother was a housekeeper. She understood what it was like to be poor; she made it her life's goal never to worry about money again. Right out of college, Annette got a position with Wilkes Global World Bank, dealing in subprime lending, high-interest borrowing, and payday loans. Gradually, she made her way up the corporate ladder, with a strong sense of strategy and a creative mind to make profits, she was able to increase earnings for Wilkes Global significantly. Throughout her career, she developed a number of business-inducing programs, a car title loan that has an interest rate of 300%, a tax return loan that will enable customers to collect a tax refund in advance, and an installment loan that was like a payday loan with the benefit of a longer payback period, usually spread over months, even years. In the company, she was a superstar. Her ambition to become the first female CEO was in reach. After years of impressing the Board of Directors, Annette was eventually promoted to CEO at the age of 48, the youngest CEO in the history of the bank. Her determination did not end there; she managed to move ahead and make the bank even more profitable in her tenure as CEO. Ten years later, Annette was a multimillionaire living in a mansion, vacationing on her yacht in different Caribbean islands, and flying on her luxury plane to faraway destinations. At last, her dream as a kid became a reality. Unfortunately, when you believe you've got everything sorted, life hits you like a ton of bricks. Annette had been finding herself worn down for a couple of days, she eventually broke down and went to the doctor, following multiple blood testing and scans, it was discovered that Annette had lymphoma, it had spread to an organ outside the lymphatic system, and was considered stage four. Annette's doctors had a plan, multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a whole lot of medications. Annette was willing to work despite sickness, but the Board of Directors feared that if she died at work, it would hurt their stock price. They gave her a symbolic position on the board of directors, no voting rights, but the opportunity to attend meetings, exactly what she always wanted, the chance to attend more meetings. She respectfully denied, concentrating on getting better. Annette was a survivor, the doctors gave her a year to live, and a year and a half on, she was still living. When another chemotherapy cycle had finished, she sat in the waiting room, preparing for another PET scan to see whether her cancer had decreased. A man in filthy clothing, appearing homeless, walked in and sat across Annette. The two started a discussion about their cancers, as it turned out, they were each diagnosed initially with stage-4 lymphoma. Still, this man had survived ten years after his initially diagnosed death. "How did you do that? How did you survive this long?" Annette asks. "I've made a lot of sacrifices, many others can't accomplish what I've accomplished," the man notes. "I want to know, I've overcome my diagnosis by six months, I'm a fighter, I will sacrifice," Annette says. The man considers for a second, "I'm going to tell you, but I'm not responsible if you die along the way," the man says. "I recognize the repercussions; you're not going to have any blame," Annette says. The man proceeded to tell her about a place deep under the Himalayas, loosely interpreted as "Heaven on Earth." "It's not a convenient place to get to; it's a treacherous path. If you don't die getting there, you might die coming back," the man said. Step by step instructions were given to Annette, "This is where you need to commit to your sacrifice, or else it was all for nothing," said the man. When he was done, he was called in for his PET scan, leaving Annette with her decision. Annette's scans revealed just a small change in her cancer; she will need another cycle of treatment, something that will challenge her will to live. Thinking about Heaven on Earth, was it real, why would the guy in the waiting room tell her if she wasn't meant to go? One week before the start of her chemotherapy, she decided to make a journey to Heaven on Earth. "You're going to have to join one of those groups that climb Mount Everest; the group is going to have a Sherpa and a ton of supplies. It's going to cost a lot of money, but it's going to place you on the right path," the man from the waiting room said. Mount Everest is where Annette started with a friendly group of mountain climbers. They were all very eager to get to the summit, Annette knew she was only going to be with them for a short time. "On the trek, you will meet a fork in the trail; one route will be blocked, marked as too dangerous, the other is for the climbers of Mount Everest. Take a path marked as dangerous, named Yahya Passage," the man from the waiting room said. Annette did what she was told as the Mount Everest group paused to get water, she snuck by the closed path and began to hike the Yahya Passage. It was treacherous; in some places, the surface on the cliff was no wider than her shoe; in some areas, the ice was so slippery that she would have been better off with ice skates. Annette finished the passage and came across a pair of shacks that seemed like they were about to crumble. "After that, you're going to look for a retired Sherpa named Arandeep, ten years back, when I made this trip, he was already old, I hope he's still alive on your journey, he was the only one who knew how to get to the trench of nightmares," the man from the waiting room said. Annette knocked on both shacks; nobody was there, she sat in the snow and waited for about three hours, an older man came down from the mountain, Arandeep. He agreed to take her for $10,000. She had the money in her bag. The journey to the trench of nightmares was not terrible, Arandeep assured her that while it was snowing, however, travel is impossible in certain places, she was lucky. The trail continued into a cave that went into a mountain, lower and lower, they descended into the cave, they must have walked three miles deep into the Earth. Suddenly, the trail came to an end, and there was a 400-foot drop into the trench. It is as far as Arandeep would go, he said at his age, the trench of nightmares is too tricky. "Scale down the trench of nightmares, the trench will be freezing, but it will get warmer as you continue walking through the trench," said the man from the waiting room. Annette scaled-down the trench and started to walk; it was freezing and treacherous; there were three occasions when she nearly fell, but she survived. "At the end of the trench of nightmares, you'll see a temple in the distance; that is your destination. You'll be searching for a Shaman by the name of Sanaya, if he isn't there, wait," said the man in the waiting room. When Annette emerged from the trench of nightmares, the temple, far smaller than she had imagined, was just half a mile distant. Exhausted, it seemed like it took hours to travel half a mile. She came to the temple; there were hot springs all over, but she didn't see anybody. She entered the temple; it was only one room. In the middle of the room, there was a fountain, as Annette went to touch the water, a man stopped her speaking in plain English. "Stop what you're doing, why are you here?" the Shaman asked. The Shaman asked her to tell her story, Annette told him of her journey from childhood to cancer. The Shaman said he was going to help her, but she was going to have to give up all her earthly belongings, give up her former existence entirely, and lead a life of servitude. Annette agreed to make those sacrifices. The Shaman offered her a book of Psalms to read every day, he claimed that as long as she maintained her changed life and continued reading the Psalms daily, her disease would not return. It wasn't what Annette had expected, she traveled to the center of the Earth, and all she had got was a book of Psalms in exchange. She marched back through the trench of nightmares, followed the route left by Arandeep, ascended the Yahya Passage again, and returned home. When Annette returned home, she immediately gave away all of her things, donated all of her money to charity, and renounced anything having to do with her former life; she dropped off the grid. Annette began her life of hard labor, working for bread, struggling in fields, roadside markets, and other manual labor. It's a hard life, but her cancer was gone. Each year, she will undergo a PET scan to ensure that cancer remains in remission. Five years into her new life, she was working at a farmer's market on the side of the road when a Rolls-Royce pulled up, a longtime executive with the Wilkes Global Bank got out. Annette was quickly noticed by the executive, as she was attempting to hide behind some oranges. He was so relieved to see that she was alive, that there were rumors that she had died. Before leaving, the executive offered Annette the opportunity, $100,000, to set up an insurance fund and three months of work getting it off the ground. Annette declined immediately. The executive left his business card and said that she was the best in the business, and if she ever changed your mind, she should give him a call. Annette hung on to the card; it was a temptation. Annette hated her new life; it's what she's been striving to escape since childhood. She asked herself, was it worth living if you had to suffer for it. A couple of weeks after, she made the phone call to the executive. She took the job and went to the headquarters of the Wilkes Global World Bank. It was time to sign the contract; she made sure she had a PET scan prior, and everything was clear. She was about the sign on the dotted line at the bottom of the contract but then paused. It was at the time that Annette changed her mind and went back to her hard labor existence. Maybe it was chemotherapy, perhaps it was the radiation that finally did its job, or maybe it was a Shaman in a hidden temple in the Himalayas, there's no way to say for sure. What she realized was that she was defying the odds--being alive and poor beats rich and dead any day. Those who tempt fate rarely make it long enough to tell the story.