It's like skydiving. You weigh out the possibilities: the negatives, the positives. You talk yourself in and out of it ten, twenty, thirty times. Your heart never stops racing. You soar, all the way to the highest possible altitude. You're feeling more alive than you've ever felt, and you build up the courage to take the risk, the potentially fatal leap.  
You convince yourself it's worth it.
Then you jump.
And you fall.
It's beautiful: the view, the freedom, the rush.
You keep falling.
And falling.
But there's no parachute.