On Illumination

As I wandered out into the ocean, I noticed something had changed.

The cool water still felt refreshing. The breakers were still formidable. But there was a contrast to this body of water that hadn’t existed a few hours earlier.

Sunlight was no longer exploding off the whitecaps, preventing me from seeing more than two feet in any direction. Instead, a mosaic of moving water splayed out as far as my eyes could see. A mix of cobalt blue, frothy white, and dark gray.

The tidal pull had something to do with this shift. Earlier, the ocean had enveloped half the beach. But now the tide had gone out. Instead of advancing forward into the waves, I had walked gradually downhill to submerge myself.

But the tides couldn’t explain the refreshed color palette in the sea. That had everything to do with the position of the sun.

Earlier, it had been directly overhead. But now, it was practically positioned behind the beach.

That new angle brought definition to the seascape. Shadows and highlights emerged, forming an elaborate contrast that left me mesmerized.

Illumination means everything.

Many years ago, I went to a Colorado Rockies game with a friend.

Our seats were down the left field line, a few rows from the field. It was prime territory to snag a foul ball, so all the fans around us stayed focused on the game.

But around the fourth inning, our section thinned out considerably. I joked that everyone must have had a hankering for a hot dog at the same time.

Oh, no, my friend replied. They’re heading to the concourse to see the sunset.

It turns out that the Rockies ballpark had a unique feature. Namely, a gap in the left field corner between the hulking upper deck and the massive outfield scoreboard. In this particular corner, the lower concourse was the highest feature in the stadium.

We’d walked by this area on the way to our seats, but I didn’t think twice about it. Sure, you could see the Rocky Mountains from there. But this was Colorado. You could always see the mountains off in the distance.

But now, in the fourth inning, the sun was setting over those same mountains. A rich palette of color was taking center stage in the left field corner. And for many, priorities had changed accordingly.

The ballgame was no longer the main event. The sunset in the distance had become appointment viewing.

Illumination means everything.

To get that view of the sun setting over the Rocky Mountains, one only needed to buy a ticket to the Rockies game. And to get that rich view of the ocean in the late afternoon, one only needed to head to a public beach.

But such vistas rarely come so cheaply.

Indeed, most beachfront, lakefront, and mountain views are already accounted for. They’re wrapped up in private property, valued at a premium.

Many finance types have pointed out that these investments are far from worthwhile. Between the purchase price and the insurance bills, they carry a cost that’s far from rational.

For most the day, the naysayers would be right. But then the sun hits that spot in the sky, and the vista beyond the property transforms itself. And it’s as if the wonders of the world are performing to an exclusive audience.

That’s what keeps the whole thing going. That’s why the well-off keep hold of these overpriced properties. And that’s why the rest of us search for a public beach or buy a ticket to a ballgame to do the same.

Illumination means everything.

There’s something fascinating about this whole dynamic.

First off, this setup shatters the whole concept of permanence. Mountains don’t move, and the sea continually stretches to the horizon. But at a certain time of day, it seems like we’re transported to an entirely different place, without moving an inch. The position of the sun can be just that powerful.

And such power cannot be controlled. We can do our best to corner the market on viewpoints. But no money in the world will allow us to view a sunset from the deck at 11 AM, or the rich blue of the ocean on an overcast afternoon. We are captivated by nature’s beauty, but we are powerless to conjure such majesty on our terms.

This whole dynamic defines our existence. And I’d argue that it enriches it as well.

You see, when we yearn for an experience we can’t control, it forces us to level up. We must become masters of patience and prioritization. We must strive to be richer in the illustrative pictures we paint on the canvas, on the page, or through the spoken word.

If the late day sun didn’t bring out such defined colors in the ocean, I wouldn’t have reached into the depths of my writing abilities to convey them. Such efforts only come from captivation, from awe, and from inspiration. Fading light on the water provides that.

And if that sunset view from the Rockies ballpark hadn’t captivated its first viewer just so, they wouldn’t have gone on to share that wonder with their friends and acquaintances. And those friends and acquaintances wouldn’t have gone on to tell their friends and acquaintances. And the fourth inning tradition wouldn’t have come to be.

This is the power of the world’s wonders. Of limited-time engagements. Of all that is too inspiring to be kept to oneself or patently ignored.

Illumination means everything.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Ferris Bueller wasn’t heading to the beach, catching the sunset, or otherwise capturing nature’s essence when he uttered these lines at the start of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But we could stand to gain plenty from this advice nonetheless.

Let’s turn off autopilot, remove the blinders, and take note of what’s around us. How it all looks at this moment, and how that vista might differ once this moment has passed.

This activity might seem counterintuitive in an on-demand world. But it fills a gap that modernity has created. A gap that was once filled by wonder.

Let’s bring that attribute back into our lives. Let’s fill our souls with awe. And let’s endeavor to share that feeling with others through any means that best suit us.

We’ll be better for the experience. Those around us will as well.

Illumination means everything.

Certainty of Outcomes

On June 12, 2009, the New York Mets and New York Yankees faced off in a baseball game.

The teams had played each other plenty over the years. But this was the first matchup in the Yankees’ new home ballpark.

Plenty of mayhem ensued. Home runs, bases loaded walks, and lead changes aplenty.

But as the 9th inning approached, the Mets held an 8-7 lead. As their closer took the mound, things looked bleak for the Yankees.

The home side did manage to get two runners on base, but they also made two outs. Their final hope for salvation was struggling superstar Alex Rodriguez.

Rodriguez took a mighty swing — and popped the ball high up in the air. He slammed his bat down in frustration as Mets second baseman Luis Castillo – an elite defender – drifted toward the edge of the outfield grass.

As Castillo waited for the ball to come out of the sky, everyone in the stadium thought the same thing.

This game is over. The Mets have won it.

But then, a strange thing happened. Castillo dropped the ball. Flustered, he threw the ball toward second base – even though both baserunners were already rounding third base. Another infielder quickly shuttled the ball to home plate, but it was too late.

Both runners scored. The Yankees won.

As the home fans roared, one thing was evident.

The sure thing wasn’t that sure at all.

In the years since Castillo’s infamous flub, three trends have enveloped sports.

First, advanced analytics have entered the field. Everything from the angle of Rodriguez’s pop up to the speed of Castillo’s frantic throw to second base would be tracked in the modern day.

Second, wagering has gone from taboo to mainstream. Fans don’t need to travel to a Las Vegas sportsbook to post a legal bet on sports action anymore. These days, they can even wager on little slices of a game – such as a single at-bat.

Add those two trends together, and you find the third trend. Sports broadcasters now track Win Probability within games. Indeed, there are graphs throughout the action showing the likelihood that one team will go on to win the game. Those graphs fluctuate due to factors like time remaining, score, and situational elements (runners on base, field position, penalties, and so on).

If that Mets-Yankees matchup took place 15 years later than it did, the Mets would likely have held a 97% Win Probability when Rodriguez strode to the plate. Yes, the Yankees had the tying and winning runs on base, but they only had one out left to work with. The chances of making that one opportunity count were slim.

The Mets’ Win Probability would have dropped a bit — perhaps to 95% — by the time Rodriguez took his fateful swing. He was in a favorable batting count at that point, with the Mets pitcher virtually assured of dealing him something hittable.

But as soon as the ball went into the air, and Rodriguez’s bat slammed to the ground, the Mets’ Win Probability would have spiked back to 99%. Even the analytics would have agreed the game was in the bag for them.

And yet, the 1% chance of failure became reality. The Yankees would have literally defied the odds.

This type of narrative happens frequently now. If a basketball team overcomes a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter, or a football team wins a game they trailed by 17 points in the second half, pundits will cite Win Probabilities to show how unlikely the comeback was. The word miracle — once reserved for a famous Olympic hockey match — is now a commonplace sports descriptor.

But it’s a misnomer. In sports and in life more generally.

Several years ago, I attended an all-company meeting on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

It was several months after the COVID pandemic had broken out, so the meeting was held via videoconference. Unease was in the air due to the impending holiday devoid of its usual large gatherings.

The meeting started as they always did – with the head of our company reading out the organization’s mission statement.

But the next slide contained a bombshell. The company was getting acquired.

The Chief Executive Officer of the acquiring company then joined the meeting to explain the situation further. He made sure to mention that while the deal hadn’t formally closed, it would take “a meteor hitting the earth for it to not happen.”

As I took in the news, I couldn’t get past that statement.

What a stupid thing to say, I thought. There’s no certainty until the final papers are signed.

I would know.

Over the years, I’d seen my fair share of sure things fall through. I’d been stood up on dates, rejected from job opportunities after final round interviews, and seen family outings get canceled. I knew better than to consider anything the real deal before it came true.

Pen did eventually meet paper, and the deal went through. But it did nothing to quell my unease.

For this was but one example of preemptive certainty of outcomes. Indeed, our society seems fixated on calling the race before the first contestant crosses the finish line.

In some ways, this trend was inevitable. Americans have never been known for patience, and the smartphone era has vanquished the last frontier of our restraint.

But that doesn’t make it right.

For life can be cruel and irrational. Even if we’re a foot from the front gate with a 30 mile per hour wind at our back, there’s still a chance for nature to bar us entry.

That’s just the way of the world. And we need to come to terms with it.

Numbers are the universal language.

I can’t recall who imparted this wisdom on me. But I’ve never forgotten the advice itself.

So much of our lives remains up for interpretation. What we see. What we say. What we write. It can vary from culture to culture, or region to region.

But the rules of numbers are finite. 1 + 1 will always equal 2. And a 95% chance is better than a 5% one.

It’s time we reacquaint ourselves with this practice. That we stop equating a 98% chance with a 100% one. That we stop proclaiming false certainty of outcomes.

Sure, this might take the wind out of our sails a bit. And yes, it will make the journey seem a bit nervier.

But we’ll spare ourselves the egg on our face if we save the celebration for the destination. We’ll find the security we seek, and we’ll become less vulnerable to last second plot twists.

It’s a high reward, low-cost proposition.

Let’s make it a reality.

500

I placed my palms down on the floor, a little more than shoulder-width apart. I let my legs slide backwards until only the balls of my feet touched the ground.

I took a deep breath, with my torso suspended a foot or so in the air. Then I let my body sink toward the ground, my elbows bowing outward to make room.

Just as my nose was about to hit the floor, I straightened out my arms. I felt the pressure move from my forearms to my shoulders as my torso rose upward to its original position.

I’d just completed a push up.

That wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself. I could do a few more of these.

So, I did. I kept sinking to the ground and lifting myself back up. Over and over again.

10 repetitions became 20. 20 reps became 30. But around rep 31, I started to feel a burning sensation in my arms.

The force of all that movement had caught up with me. My body felt tired and heavy. I could no longer make it through without discomfort.

I struggled my way to the 40th push up. Then I stopped.

It turns out time does take its toll.

Half of success is just showing up.

I’ve heard that phrase plenty. And it’s led me to scratch my head.

You see, I’ve always considered showing up to be table stakes. After all, it’s hard to seize opportunities without being present for them.

How could something foundational be worth half of the jackpot? It shouldn’t be.

So, in an era of participation medals and self-indulgence, I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone. I’ve focused on my execution and tried to keep the spotlight off my effort.

Being there has meant nothing to me. What I do in the moment has meant everything.

Recently though, I’ve found myself re-evaluating my point of view.

For it turns out that showing up is trickier than it might seem.

Sure, it’s simple enough to be present on day one, day two, or even day ten. We’re fresh. We’re eager. We’re determined.

But eventually the weight of all our expended energy catches up with us. We get worn down. And our will to persist wanes.

This is why the 31st pushup is harder than the first. And it’s why the 31st day of any venture is more challenging than the 11th.

It takes something special to power through. Stubbornness. Determination. Sacrifice.

It’s uncommon to see such traits in action, day after day. And when they are on display, the least we could do is recognize them.

Showing up might not be precisely half of success. But it matters.

Nearly a decade ago, I took a plunge into the unknown.

I’d been considering sharing my writing online for some time, in the form of an online publication. I had a lot of stories to tell, and I was eager to share my thoughts with the world. But I was terrified that my venture would fall into the abyss of online content out there.

How can I break through? I thought to myself. How can I avoid the curse of irrelevance?

As I pondered these questions, I thought about my favorite thought leaders on the Internet.  The personalities I followed back then showed up repeatedly and reliably. A daily blog post. A weekly YouTube video. A monthly newsletter.

It kept me engaged as an audience member. And it kept me accountable.

Perhaps I could try the same thing with my nebulous audience.

So, I made a commitment. I would share something fresh, original, and substantive each week. And in doing so, I’d give readers something to come back for, time and again.

This pledge didn’t seem overly daunting at the time. After all, I had lots of stories in my head that were yearning for the light. Sharing one a week would be relatively simple.

So, I set up my web domain, drafted my first article, and hit Publish. Then I did it again. And again. And again.

500 times, to be exact.

Yes, this is the 500th consecutive weekly article to appear on Ember Trace. There hasn’t been a single hiatus since the publication came to life.

Technically, I’ve only relied on three items to keep this streak alive — a word processor, a website, and a stable Internet connection. But this whole venture has demanded  far more of me.

I’ve become relentlessly creative, judicious with time-management, and determined to make writing a priority. I’ve made this venture a focal point of my life.

All to repeat the trick of hitting Publish 500 times over.

That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Several years back, I met with a physical therapist who specialized in treating runners.

I was close to the peak of my running career at that point, with the physique and the medal haul to match. But I’d also picked up a couple of injuries that had knocked me out of some races. And I worried that my gait was to blame.

The physical therapist looked on as I ran on a specialized treadmill. Then he showed me some video clips of my form.

Sure enough, my right foot was freelancing. It would oscillate with each stride – oftentimes landing behind my left heel. This wild motion led my torso to twist, putting strain on my right hip, knee and ankle.

I looked on, defeated. It seemed that I was going to need to relearn how to run.

But the physical therapist had other ideas.

He gave me a litany of exercises to practice at the gym. Mobility drills. Strength training. Balance tasks.

I was to run through that circuit several times a week, paying close attention to detail. But when I went for a run, I was ordered to pay my form no mind.

Confusion washed over my face. Why wouldn’t fixing my form be the number one priority?

The physical therapist explained the gait doesn’t define success for runners. In fact, many with unusual strides have gone on to achieve great things. Their bodies adapted to the unbalanced movements, and they created a new equilibrium.

I think about this often when I’m drafting a new article for Ember Trace.

The stories in my mind are no longer abundant, and article topics no longer flow freely. Indeed, I feel far more like I’m on my 31st push up than my first. Such are the challenges of doing something 500 times over.

But with God’s grace, I’m still out here. I’m still writing, still publishing, still making a miniscule mark on this world every seven days.

I’m proud of that feat. And I’m honored to keep it going.

Here’s to 500. And to all that’s still to come.

Learning to Wait

The calendar looked like a warped tic-tac-toe board.

A series of X’s covered various date boxes, with the marks accelerating toward one date that was circled.

My sister was relying on this system as she waited for our parents to return.

They were across the ocean, enjoying a European vacation. Our grandparents were looking after us in their stead.

I didn’t mind this arrangement. But my sister did.

She was maybe 4 or 5 years old. She couldn’t fathom why our parents would abandon us like this. And she wanted the whole episode to end, immediately.

So, after enduring a night of my sister’s hysterics, my grandmother suggested the calendar technique. It wouldn’t make our parents come home faster. But it would help make their impending return more tangible.

The activity transformed my sister. A new sense of determination overtook her. Despair gave way to excitement, which built with each passing day.

Learning to wait was paying dividends.

Patience is a virtue.

You’ve likely heard that proverb a time or three. And for good reason.

Waiting, you see, is the natural order of things. Plants take time to blossom. Structures take time to complete. And opportunities take time to emerge.

And yet, we’re not wired to wait. From our earliest days, we demand instant gratification. A bottle. A blanket. A toy.

To paraphrase Queen, we want it all and we want it now.

This central tension requires a metamorphosis. To reap the fruits of the world around us, we must learn to live by its rules. And that requires a crash course in patience.

My grandmother taught that course to my sister with that calendar exercise. And I went through similar crucibles as I learned to wait.

These lessons were annoying, frustrating, and bewildering at the time. But looking back now, I’m grateful for them.

For much of my life has developed gradually. Professional opportunities have often been slow to emerge. Social connections have ebbed and flowed. Earning power has arrived relatively late to the party.

If I hadn’t learned patience, I wouldn’t have achieved much. I’d have thrown in the towel years ago — resigning myself to a future of bitterness and diminished potential.

Patience was one of the greatest gifts of my childhood.

But I wonder if I’m among its final recipients.

My middle school years were a whirlwind.

I was attending a new school — one which I was commuting to on my own. To cut down on the risk, my parents bought me a cell phone.

Back home, my parents had added cable TV, a PlayStation 2, and a DSL internet line. Instead of spending my evenings ensconced in boredom, I could now watch a show, play a video game, or browse the web.

Instant gratification had been dropped into my midst like supplies from a rescue helicopter. Life had fundamentally changed.

But not entirely.

You see, much of this technology was primitive by modern standards. Smartphones and streaming were still years away. And the options contained in these digital devices were far from limitless.

Plus, I’d already become well-versed in the virtue of patience. So, I tended to treat instant gratification more like snack than a full meal.

The landscape is far different for kids today.

By the time they get to middle school, many have been playing with smartphones and tablets for years. They’ve streamed bottomless catalogs of shows on big screen TVs. They’ve played hosts of video games online, facing off against peers hundreds of miles away.

This setup provides ample opportunities for the newest generations. Opportunities my younger self could have never dreamed of.

And yet, it brings up some disconcerting questions.

It’s safe to say that today’s children won’t need resort to cross off dates on their calendars or counting the tiles on the kitchen backsplash. There are more dynamic entertainment options at their disposal.

But how will these generations learn how to practice patience? That lesson no longer seems to be required in the era of instant gratification. And I worry about what that means down the line.

On a June night in Florida, a group of hockey players took turns skating around an ice rink in a sports arena.

The players had just won the Stanley Cup. And each was taking a victory lap with the most prestigious trophy in sports – cheered on by thousands of delirious fans.

Standing among the players on the ice was a middle-aged man in a suit. He was the team’s coach. A hard-charging hockey lifer who had never won the big one before.

As a TV reporter interviewed the coach, one of the players skated up to the coach with the Stanley Cup. He abruptly paused the interview and hoisted the trophy high above his head, letting out a roar.

It was fitting.

Paul Maurice had coached 26 seasons in the National Hockey League. He had spent time behind the bench for four different franchises, winning 900 games in the process.

But he’d never reached the pinnacle of his profession before.

He’d come close at times. Twice, he’d watched an opposing team hoist the cup at his team’s expense. But he’d also been fired twice and forced to resign once.

It had been a long road to glory. In the face of so much heartbreak and heartache, Maurice needed to practice patience. To learn to wait for his opportunity, and to capture it when it arrived.

That opportunity came at the end of his second season coaching the Florida Panthers. Patience paid off in a moment of instant gratification.

It sounds ironic. But it’s par for the course.

You see, hockey coaching jobs have become a revolving door in recent years. Few bench bosses last more than a few seasons with any team. Instead, experienced coaches move around the league in an elaborate game of musical chairs.

As I write this, only three coaches across the league have been in their posts for four seasons. Yet at least nine have track records comparable to Maurice’s.

It seems that team executives have impulse-itis. They crave instant gratification and accept nothing less. Even though the absurdity of that quest is self-evident.

This disconnect is what awaits our entire society if we don’t learn to wait. People will jump ship from their responsibilities at the first moment of difficulty. Those offering opportunities will cut bait at the first sign of underperformance.

There will be no runway for us to evolve, to grow, to let things develop. Life will be a series of hollow moments in time, with precious few of them fulfilling.

This is not a path worth following. So, let’s re-blaze an old one.

Let’s put boundaries around the instant gratification in our midst. Let’s re-introduce mid and long-term goals back to our lives. And let’s evangelize patience as a strength, not a weakness.

Going back to the future like this will surely have its challenges. But it will unlock untold opportunities for all of us to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

And that’s an outcome worth waiting for.

Wear on the Tires

The scene was horrific.

A beachside condominium in ruins, with residents trapped beneath the rubble.

It seemed like something out of a movie. But back in June 2021, it was all too real for the residents of Surfside, Florida.

A wing of the Champlain Towers complex abruptly collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people and injuring plenty more.

No hurricane or fire or other acute disaster brought the building down. And there were no warning signs to alert inhabitants to the structure’s demise. Indeed, the randomness of the incident made it so terrifying.

How could a building that had been through the rigors of the tropics suddenly give out like this on a clear, calm night? And would others suffer the same fate?

The answers are disconcerting. But they require our investigation.

I remember the day I first felt it.

A hollow pain on the inside of my lower leg.

I was on a morning run, and I’d just crossed a busy street. I grimaced for a second. But I gave no thought to stopping.

After all, running is about endurance. About continuing, even when it’s uncomfortable. I wasn’t about to break with that mantra here.

Besides, it was hot and humid out. Maybe I was just cramping up.

When I reached a water fountain a mile later, I took a healthy swig. But the blast of hydration and a quick stretch of the legs did little to quell the discomfort. And nothing else I tried in the ensuing days helped.

So, I went to the doctor, who ordered an X-ray. When that came back clean, I went through acres of red tape to get an MRI scheduled.

That image contained the smoking gun. A hairline fracture in my left tibia.

I was ordered to stop running for 12 weeks, and to drop out of the race I’d been training for. My body needed to heal.

I was devastated by this news. All the work I’d done to train for that race had gone up in smoke. The five stages of grief were all that remained.

Still, I tried to find the silver lining in it all.

I’d put more than 1,000 miles of running on my legs over the prior year. Perhaps they’d feel fresher after a reset. Perhaps I would as well.

Yet, I found the return to running challenging. When I hit the streets a few months later, my endurance just wasn’t there.

It would take a couple months to get my stamina to return. Meanwhile, my top-end speed never quite did come back.

Plus, I kept sustaining new injuries, including one that required surgery. Those setbacks robbed me of any semblance of rhythm. I was effectively in a rolling rehab cycle for two years.

Eventually, I found the culprit for my woes. I was diagnosed with a degenerative bone condition — one that left me particularly susceptible to injury. Genetic misfortune had done me in more than anything else.

I could have taken this tidy explanation at face value. Indeed, perhaps I should have. But instead, I kept pulling at the thread of my athletic demise.

Perhaps my own delusions had done me in more than my bone chemistry ever could. Maybe the mantra that time would heal all wounds was misguided.

It all required further investigation.

When you get your driver’s license, you learn a host of new skills.

There are the core driving functions, of course. How to accelerate, brake, and steer. How to check mirrors and blind spots. How to merge into traffic or pull into a parking spot.

But then there’s the maintenance acumen. How to fill the gas tank. How to read warning lights on the dashboard. And how to check tire tread.

That last task is critically important. And yet, it’s easily overlooked.

We tend to forget about the circles of rubber connecting our vehicles to the road until that connection becomes faulty. At which point, we’re in deep trouble.

Fortunately, there’s an easy heuristic for checking tire health. If we insert an upside-down penny into the tread and see the entirety of Abraham Lincoln’s head showing, the tire is worn down — or bald.

There is no remedy for a bald tire. Our only option is to replace it with a newer, fresher model. And this happens relatively frequently.

I’ve primarily driven three vehicles in my lifetime. But I’ve had at least six sets of tires — combined — on those vehicles.

So, I find myself perplexed when I hear the term wear on the tires bandied about as a complement in social settings. It seems woefully out of place.

The analogy is meant to be a compliment. It indicates that someone has plenty of experience. And that a little recuperation is all that’s needed for that individual to share the fruits of all that experience.

It’s an appealing sentiment. But it’s also a delusional one.

You see, time moves in but one direction. And once we stop growing, we start degrading.

This is as true for our bodies as it is for the clothing we put on them or the tools we operate with them. Everything gets worn down until it’s worn out. There is no magic reset button.

I should have considered this when I saw that hairline fracture on my MRI results. I grasped onto the delusion of coming back better than ever. But I would have been better off acknowledging that the worn tread on my legs would never return.

It’s a sobering reality. But accepting it would have helped me move forward.

In the middle of Spain lies a small city named Segovia. And in the middle of Segovia sits a giant stone aqueduct.

The aqueduct was built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago to ferry water across a steep valley in what’s now the city center. And it still stands intact today.

It’s safe to say there’s been plenty of wear on the “tires” of this structure over the years. The granite is no longer pristine, and the mortar is no longer quite as smooth.

But the leaders of Segovia have done a remarkable job keeping the structure maintained. Over the years, they’ve repaired some of the arches and replaced some more. They’ve checked the integrity of the structure and fortified it as needed.

They’ve let the aqueduct age both gracefully and safely.

Contrast that approach with the one taken by the proprietors of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida. Instead of working with the lost tire tread, they effectively let the building rest. And 30 years into its lifespan, it gave out.

These two structures – and their fates – represent paths of destiny. We just need to choose which one we follow.

Do we cling to delusion, believing that a little time off our feet will reverse the wear on our tires? Or do we work with the degradation, and build a smooth path to tomorrow?

The answer should be clear. Let’s go with it.

The Next Frontier

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon.

Moments later, the American astronaut turned on his radio and made an eleven-word address.

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Back on earth, my father was watching all of this from a TV set. He was days away from his 9th birthday. And he was transfixed.

The next frontier had been reached. For the first time, a human had left footprints somewhere beyond this planet. Life had fundamentally changed.

This sense of wonder has remained with my father for decades.

While he didn’t seek to become an astronaut himself, my father has remained amazed by the night sky. As an adult, he traveled to the upper reaches of Sweden to view the northern lights. And when the signature frontiers of my generation – wireless Internet and the smartphone – were released, my father was one of the earliest adopters of each.

I was a teenager when those technological advances took hold. I should have been as eager as my father to traverse the next frontier.

But I wasn’t.

I had little trust of wireless connections, preferring the familiarity of the Ethernet cords that had sustained my browsing habits for years. And I saw little point for a smartphone when I my flip phone fit neatly in my pocket.

It was clear that my next frontier would not match my father’s.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on a grand expedition.

The fledgling United States had just purchased nearly a million square miles of land from the French. But neither party had set foot in much of it. So, the U.S. government commissioned Lewis and Clark’s expedition to learn more about what it had purchased.

The men convened a traveling party, which headed up the Missouri River from its mouth to its headwaters. Then the group crossed through the mountains of present-day Montana and Idaho before following the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. After a winter on what’s presently the Oregon coast, Lewis and Clark returned east to report their findings to the government.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition quickly became the stuff of legend. At the time of the journey, Kentucky and Ohio were considered the American frontier. But Lewis and Clark proved that the next frontier — a vaster, more stunning stretch of land — was out there for the claiming. And in the ensuing decades, thousands of pioneers set out to do just that.

Soon enough, settlers dotted the land from coast to coast. Farms, ranches, roads, and towns filled the wilderness. The frontier became the mainstream.

And once it did, we set our collective sights on frontiers elsewhere. First to territories in the middle of the ocean or up by the Arctic Circle. Then to the moon and stars. And then finally to the wonders of technology.

Putting a stake in the ground became the American ethos. And Lewis and Clark made it all possible.

Still, there’s an alternative explanation for the expedition that started it all. Perhaps Lewis and Clark were not visionary. Maybe they were just beneficiaries of good fortune.

You see, this expedition was not exactly a prudent one. A group of 40 people blindly headed off into a wilderness fraught with untold dangers.

Unpredictable weather, wild animals, and legions of native tribes dotted the land they were traversing. There was no way to fully anticipate encounters with any of them, and there was no way to tell when those encounters might lead to death.

Incredibly, Lewis and Clark only lost one member of their party over the course of the expedition – and that loss was caused by a medical emergency. But it’s nearly impossible to chalk the low casualty account up to anything but luck.

This point has resonated with me ever since I learned about the Lewis and Clark expedition in school. While others are captivated by the new horizons the quest unlocked, I find myself wondering what could have gone wrong along the way.

Risk reduction, you see, is my preferred frontier. Much like an insurance advisor, I’m passionate about reducing as many bad outcomes as possible.

I’m the one looking for a handrail at the vista point. I’m the one who buckles my seat belt as I readjust my SUV in a parking spot. I’m the one who obsesses over my posture as the plane takes off and lands.

So no, I wouldn’t be cut out for a trek through the wilderness. Or a trip to the moon.

I wouldn’t be keen on connecting to an early-stage Wi-Fi signal. Or purchasing the first few models of the iPhone.

From where I sit, it just wouldn’t be sensible.

Yet, there are still frontiers I yearn to explore.

They’re just on a different dimension.

Do you drink a lot of soda?

The comment from my dental hygienist seemed innocuous enough. I nodded affirmatively.

I can tell, she replied. It might be having an impact on your teeth.

My mind immediately went to the worst-case scenarios. Were a host of cavity fillings in my future? Root canals? Implants?

I was determined to avoid these fates. So, drastic changes were needed.

I’d given up most fast food a year earlier and suffered no ill effects. Maybe I could do the same with beverages.

So, I cut bait with all sugary drinks. I said goodbye to Dr Pepper and sweet tea. I started taking my coffee black and turning down offers for lemonade.

And I felt the difference almost immediately.

I dropped 10 pounds in a matter of weeks. I was no longer feeling bloated or jittery. And the dental hygienist stopped giving me grief.

Risk reduction was transforming my life.

I repeated the trick a few years later. One day in early January, I gave up alcohol for good.

At the time, I was in business school – an environment with its share of boozy social functions. I knew that flipping the switch would be difficult in this season of life. And that abstaining could even be costly to my post-graduation prospects.

But I remembered the effect the sugary drink ban had on my health. Wouldn’t an alcohol ban also work wonders?

It has. And I remain sober to this day.

These cutbacks have defined my personal frontier. Removing McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Jack Daniels from my life has transformed my body and detoxed my mind. Although I’m making my world of indulgences smaller, I’m truly better for the changes.

And yet, I’m left with a question each time I make a cutback. What’s my next frontier?

Until recently, it was caffeine. Even without soda in my arsenal, I still spent many mornings hopped up on black coffee or iced tea. But I’ve succeeded in kicking that habit as well.

So, now what? Do I eliminate sweets? Swearing? Something else?

I’m running out of vices to rid myself of. And that’s problematic.

It seems that frontiers are not infinite. Whether we’re expanding our horizons or reducing our holdings, there’s only so far to go.

I suppose I’ll need to make peace with that. Someday, when I’ve rid myself of the cupcakes and the dirty words, I’ll need to find acceptance with where I am. Just as others did after taming the wilderness, walking on the moon, or unveiling the iPhone.

Perhaps this represents our next frontier. Maybe our destiny is to be where our feet are, once we’re we done looking at what’s outward and inward.

I welcome this exploration – in a bit.

I have a few more vices to knock out first.

Outside Noise

A man rides up to the front lines of a makeshift army.

His hair is long. Half his face is painted blue. And he’s dripping with confidence.

As he parades back and forth upon his horse, he addresses the masses before him.

Sons of Scotland. I am William Wallace.

The troops are nonplussed.

William Wallace is seven feet tall! one calls out.

Wallace takes it all in stride.

Yes, I’ve heard. Kills men by the hundreds. And if he were here, he’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.

The troops chuckle. But Wallace quickly assures them that he is indeed William Wallace. And he reminds them why they have assembled on the battlefield. He ends his remarks with a warning to the English opponents across the battlefield.

They may take our lives. But they will never take our freedom!

It’s the signature scene from the movie Braveheart, and one of the great battle speeches of all time.

But it only occurs thanks to a dose of self-awareness.

Wallace hears the skepticism as he introduces himself. And he plays along with it to earn their trust.

It’s a master class in persuasion. One that’s as needed in the real world as it is on the silver screen.

We don’t listen to the outside noise.

This type of line is seemingly everywhere in the sporting universe.

Ask a coach or a player about what others are saying about their chances, and they’ll shrug it off. Fans, media pundits, and oddsmakers can speak all they want. But they ain’t hearing any of it.

Belief within the locker room is all that matters to these players and coaches. So long as that exists, the sky is the limit.

It’s a tidy theory, one tailor made for an environment dictated by scheduled competitions. Athletes have the freedom to shut out the world and just go play.

But for the rest of us? It’s not so easy.

We don’t have the luxury of built-in trust. We can’t ignore the narrative that surrounds us.

Much like William Wallace, we must pander to the crowd to get what we want out of life.

And that can get complicated.

My high school didn’t have a uniform policy.

Teenagers were allowed to wear whatever they wanted, provided it wasn’t profane or overly revealing.

Many of my classmates took advantage of this freedom to sport the latest from Abercrombie & Fitch or American Eagle. But I went a different route.

Most days, I’d show up to class in an oversized football or basketball jersey. My close-cropped hair was hidden under a backwards baseball hat. It was a set of attire unbecoming of a school setting. But it was my look.

Surely, I got some sideways stares in the hallways. And my classmates likely talked about me behind my back.

But I didn’t care enough to pay attention to any of it.

What did it matter what others thought? I had a right to live my life the way I saw fit. The outside noise hardly mattered.

But fast forward five years, and my viewpoint was quite different.

I was in my last semester of college. And I was spending my evenings applying for jobs across the southern tier of the country.

Bakersfield, California. Waco, Texas. Macon, Georgia. And so on.

I had no connections to Bakersfield, Waco, or Macon. I just knew that TV stations in those cities were looking for a news producer. A role I’d spent four years studying to step into.

While I did land phone interviews with some of those stations, none of them offered me a job.

So, I walked across the stage at graduation and into unemployment. I moved back in with my parents. And I sank into a pit of despair.

I still believed in myself. But I was starting to realize that wasn’t enough.

If I hoped to land a job, someone else would need to believe in me. They’d need to look at my resume, listen to my interview responses, and decide I was worthy of their trust.

I needed this outcome to financially sustain myself, to validate my studies, and succeed in adulthood.

The outside noise meant everything. It guarded the door to opportunity. It blazed the path to my future. It was inevitable.

So, I cleaned up my act.

I ditched my college wardrobe of t-shirts and shorts in favor of business casual attire. (I’d long since graduated from jerseys and baseball hats.) I woke up earlier each morning and forced myself to be more productive each day. I started doing mock interviews, considering my answers from the interviewer’s point of view.

And shortly thereafter, I landed my first job.

Be your authentic self.

This advice was everywhere early in my professional career.

Individualism was having a moment. Instead fitting in, people were actively trying to fit out.

I admired the pluck of this movement. But I was hesitant to play along.

For I knew the situation I was in. I was 2,000 miles from my family, providing the nightly news to a metro area of 250,000 people.

I’d earned the trust of my boss to do my job. I’d earned the trust of local TV viewers to serve the community. And I’d earned the trust of friends I’d made since I’d arrived in town.

But I knew that trust could easily be broken.

If I paid no heed to the outside noise, I might have found myself with no job, no friends, and no spot in the community. I would have been stranded on the high plains with nowhere to turn.

What others thought of me was existentially important. So, I paid attention to those perceptions. And I did my best to influence them.

This process has continued throughout my adult life. As I’ve moved to a new city, adopted a new career, went back to school, and picked up new hobbies, I’ve continued to pay attention to the outside noise.

Often, this has led to frustration. I’ve occasionally seen my goals thwarted by external skepticism. And more than once, doors have slammed in my face as a result.

Still, tuning into the feedback has helped me move forward. Instead of rebelling against adverse perceptions, I can iterate off them. And in doing so, I can increase my chances of getting the next opportunity — all while remaining true to who I am.

If trust is a bridge to opportunity, I’m building the pilings and approaches to that bridge from my side of the divide. And I’m making it easier for the other party to follow suit.

But all this is only possible because I recognize that the divide exists. And because I can see the merit in its inevitability.

We all can find value in this approach. We all would be better served acting like William Wallace in front of his troops than an athlete dismissing the media members in the locker room.

So, let’s get to it.

The outside noise matters. Use it well.

On Adequacy

The image speaks volumes.

I’m standing on a racing podium, displaying my silver medal. Beside me are the gold and bronze medalists. We all look happy, but my smile is the most radiant.

I’d headed to the starting line of this race with a clear objective. I wanted to traverse the 10-kilometer — or 6.2 mile — distance in under 40 minutes.

It was an audacious goal, one that required equal parts speed and endurance. The fact that the race was occurring on hot summer morning — and that I’d been battling an injury in the week prior — only made this mark more difficult to attain.

But against all odds, I’d persevered. I started out the race briskly, settled into a steady pace, and survived the final couple miles.

As I crossed the finish line, the clock read 39:54. I’d set a personal best for this distance.

Mission accomplished. Well, sort of.

You see, my finishing time wasn’t atop the leaderboard on this day. In fact, I wasn’t even in the top 10 of all racers. And when it came to my division — the subset of male racers who were around my age — my performance was only second best.

That’s why I was holding a silver medal on the podium, rather than a gold one or a winner’s plaque. I’d earned those in other races — either for overall performance or standing in my division. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for similar accolades this time.

But I wasn’t going to let my standing impact my mood. I’d done my best on this day, and I’d proved my adequacy in the wake of some tough competition.

I had everything to smile about.

It’s good enough for government work.

I was dumbfounded when one of my high school teachers stated this to my class.

The solution he’d posited on the whiteboard was not quite complete. It was maybe 90% to the point of where it should be.

Why call it a day there? And why smear the government like this?

Clearly, there was much for me to learn about the ways of the world. And I needed to rid my mind of its utopian perceptions.

In the classroom, achievement was graded on an A to F scale. Expectations were clearly defined, and it was my responsibility to attain them.

If I paid attention, completed assignments, and studied diligently, I’d find the rewards of the winner’s circle. Sparkling grades, the praise of my teachers, a chance to continue my studies at a prestigious university — they were all possible if I just did the work.

Adequacy was everything in this environment.

But in the world outside the classroom windows, things were far murkier. There was no framework of expectations. There was only a bar to clear — one that could be set higher or lower at will.

The government, in my teacher’s telling, set that bar lower. There was too much bureaucracy in play to demand a culture of excellence.

But other corners of society were more akin to an Olympic high jumping competition. People could set the bar higher and higher, until they were leaping halfway to the moon.

The context was established by the pace setters, the winners, the high-fliers. Doing an adequate job in this environment would earn you precisely nothing.

It was a hard lesson to take in. In fact, I’m still wrestling with it today.

I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

That refrain is the centerpiece of Linkin Park’s hit song In The End – which was playing seemingly everywhere during my teenage years.

I found those lines needlessly dark and brooding back then. After all, this was the land of opportunity, and my future was bright. Why should I think my hard work would go for naught?

But now, I feel a kinship with them.

You see, I’ve attained quite a bit in my adult life. I’ve embarked on a career, left it, and built another one. I’ve increased my net worth, grown my social circle, and expanded my knowledge base.

I’ve shown adequacy at every turn. And I’ve taken every opportunity to demonstrate my competence.

But what has it gotten me?

Far less than I’d anticipated.

According to my teenage logic, I should have been well-established by now. I should have already reached a higher standing in my professional field, with my own piece of land to call home, and enough in the bank account to be perpetually comfortable.

But instead, I’m hearing Linkin Park in my head, over and over.

Some of this has to do with the era I’ve come of age in. Economic turmoil, a pandemic, and rapid technological innovation have scrambled the deck more than ever before.

But I believe a more specific shift is at play. One that rejects adequacy in favor of exceptionalism.

Now, to be clear, the allure of the exceptional has always been there. But with the world more interconnected than ever before, it’s now easier to find unicorns. And the risks of settling for anything less are dauntingly steep.

This presents quite the problem for the adequate.

Indeed, in every corner of my life, I feel like I’m in a silent auction with moon jumpers. I can put in my best effort and prove my adequacy. But there will inevitably be someone with more means, more accolades, and more abilities to seize that which I am striving for. Someone I cannot see or size up. Someone I will only hear of after the fact.

There is no silver medal for me to claim. There is nothing for me to do.

There is only me standing on the podium in the wind. And the smile on my face is gone.

I sat on an upholstered chair in a wood-paneled office next to the school gym. The baseball coach sat across the table from me.

He got straight to the point.

I’m sorry. You didn’t make the team.

Those seven words stung, no doubt. I’d yearned to be a pro baseball player for years. Now, I wasn’t even going to have the chance to suit up for my sophomore year of high school.

But I can’t say I was all that surprised.

I’d done a few good things the prior season, and I’d given my best during tryouts. But others had attained more. They deserved a spot on the team more than I did.

I walked out of the room, hearing the door close behind me. And I started to consider which doors ahead might open for me.

I had good grades in school, and I knew I could write. Plus, I liked watching movies. Maybe I could be a screenwriter.

I followed this thread all the way into my first year of college. But after taking a few film classes there, I discovered that television was more up my alley. So, I switched my major to Broadcast Journalism and parlayed that into a job as a TV news producer.

Adequacy hadn’t helped me live out my baseball dreams. But it opened other avenues for me to move forward into self-sufficiency.

Now, all these years later, I’m unsure where to turn. The path forward to the next era of my life seems to be reserved for the unicorns, the invisible exceptionalists. I have no guidance on what’s needed to reach their level. And I have no alternative avenues to get me to my destination.

Adequacy has led me to a dead end. And I’m stuck in the cul-de-sac.

There seems to be no simple path out of this morass. But I won’t give up.

I’ll keep trying my best, giving my all, and proving my adequacy at every turn.

Hopefully someday that will be enough to get me through.

The Curse of The Strongman

He had thick eyebrows and a thicker mustache.

He dressed in the fashion of the day. A suit. A hat. An overcoat. A pistol.

His name was Seth Bullock, and he was a prominent western sheriff.

Bullock might not have held the notoriety of Wyatt Earp or Pat Garrett. But he was just as effective a lawman as those two – if not more. Operating with steely resolve, Bullock cleaned up a county in Montana. Then he repeated the trick in the Dakota Territory.

Bullock’s exploits helped tame the northern frontier. They also drew the acclaim of future President Theodore Roosevelt, who would go on to appoint Bullock as a United States Marshal.

And yet, despite Bullock’s strong and steady hand, there’s little recognition of him in the region today. It’s Roosevelt — not Bullock — whose face is chiseled into a mountain in South Dakota, and whose name is on a national park in North Dakota.

Bullock had the pedigree of a strongman. But it turns out that title only goes so far.

Back when I was in middle school, I leaned about a particular term in history class.

Tariffs.

I hadn’t seen this word in my day-to-day life. And for good reason.

Tariffs, I discovered, were taxes on goods shipped across national borders in the 18th century. American colonists took exception to the practice back then, and this backlash helped pave to the road to America’s independence.

I internalized this information, used it to ace my class exam, and promptly filed it away in the furthest recesses of my mind.

Tariffs hadn’t been relevant in 225 years. I wouldn’t need to worry about them anymore.

Boy, was I wrong.

You see, a generation after I turned in my history exam, a new president took the helm in America. Well, more accurately, a returning president — one who had occupied the Oval Office four years prior.

This president railed against weak leadership while campaigning for his old job. He all but pledged to be a strongman if elected back to the role. And voters accepted the pledge, paving his road back to the White House.

Once back in power, the president took every opportunity to rule with an iron fist. He started deporting migrants, slashing the government workforce, and systematically removing his opponents from positions of influence.

It was all a bit jarring, but hardly unpredictable. This is what a strongman does.

But his next move would prove the most disruptive. The president brought back tariffs, imposing them on nearly every other country on the planet.

The reasoning for this move was straightforward —to the president, at least. America had been roiled by skyrocketing inflation in recent years. American industry had been on the decline, and trade deficits with other countries had widened.

Why not solve all these problems with one fell swoop? Make global trade too expensive to be practical. And bring supply chains — and their associated jobs — back within American borders.

Unemployment would plummet as industrial jobs returned within our borders. And with those goods being made closer to home, prices would drop as well.

The stock market would rally, businesses would remain profitable, and families would bask in the prosperity of a rejuvenated economy. The strongman leader would be the hero, the savior, the genius behind it all.

This was the theory the president had as he announced the tariffs. But things played out much differently.

Markets tanked within hours of the announcement, wiping out billions of dollars in value. Businesses raised alarm about rapid onshoring of operations — a process that normally takes years to complete. Financial analysts warned of rising prices, and even the risk of a recession.

The president may have embodied the strongman persona with aplomb before. But now, he appeared to have overplayed his hand.

It was a sordid outcome. But hardly an unprecedented one.

The annals of history are filled with strongman leaders.

The legacies of these leaders vary widely. Some built empires through military might, for instance. Others committed mass genocide and related atrocities.

But even with these varying outcomes, two threads seem to tie this archetype together. Strongman leaders are effective at consolidating power and ineffective at managing an economy.

That second part of the equation might not seem intuitive. But it should be.

Economics, you see, represents the systematic allocation of scarce resources. The entire practice is built on the premise that there’s not enough to go around, and participants must consider trade-offs.

Just about every economic concept — from Invisible Hand to specialization to supply chains — stems from the entrenched reality of these trade-offs. Capitalism is essentially built on it.

But cooperative systems like these crumble in the face of the strongman ethos. There is no room for the strongman to share control or delegate influence. Giving an inch means the gig is up.

So, strongmen often choose power over prosperity. Or they silence the voices of reason in favor of chasing economic fantasies.

The latter appears to be happening in America. Tariffs are just the vehicle to get the nation to that outcome.

This is the curse of the strongman. And we’re mired in it.

Guilt by association.

Such a concept is prevalent in America.

If we give a friend a ride to the bank, and the friend robs that bank, there’s a good chance we’ll be viewed as complicit in the crime.

This might seem unfair. We didn’t necessarily know what our friend would do once inside those bank doors.

But we should have.

The bank robber was our friend, after all. We’ve conversed with them, immersed ourselves in their personality, and come to recognize what they were capable of.

The same principle holds true when it comes to our leaders — particularly those of the strongman variety. We might not be directly culpable for their actions. But we still carry the stain of association.

We do so because we lean into one illusion, in particular. That an iron fist can yield widespread economic prosperity.

This is simply not possible, for the reasons already discussed. And there are plenty of real-world examples of the illusion failing. Examples we’ve seen in the news, or learned about in school, or just heard about through our social circles.

We know better. And yet, we chase after misguided fantasies anyway.

It’s time to wake up.

There is an explanation as to why Seth Bullock’s name no longer graces much of the northern tier.

It centers on a couple of elections that took place in the 1870s in what is now Lawrence County, South Dakota.

Bullock had served as sheriff in the county. But he was an appointed sheriff who had been named to his position by the Dakota territory’s governor.

As the county legitimized, elections were held for the sheriff’s position. Bullock ran for his post, but he did not win it. He was forced to cede his duties.

Bullock tried again in the following year’s election. But once again, the voters cast his aspirations aside.

Even at the apex of his exploits, Bullock’s legacy was getting sidelined.

It’s hard to know exactly what led to these election losses. But it’s possible that the citizens of Lawrence County saw the limits of strongman rule.

Sure, Bullock could cut down on the saloon fights and the shootouts in the street. But the frontier region was on the precipice of a boom. Could Bullock really help deliver the prosperity residents were seeking?

It appeared not.

Indeed, Bullock’s exploits had pitted him against some local business owners — who prospered in trade and social connections across the county, but who also engaged in some illicit activities. Voters seemed to favor the future promised by these leaders to the strongman keeping them safe.

Perhaps we can take something from our ancestors’ example. Perhaps we can get less swept up in the fantasy of rhetoric. And perhaps we can apply more logic when a strongman makes their pitch of prosperity to us.

This might not sooth the acid reflux of our current tariffed economy. But it could keep some future heartburn at bay.

And that matters.

Looking Up

My father placed a blanket on the grass. As we parked ourselves on it, he encouraged me to look up at the night sky.

I glanced upwards. It didn’t look like much to me at first.

But then my father started pointing at the little specks illuminating the darkness.

See that? It’s Orion’s belt. And over there is the big dipper.

I stared on, struggling to see the patterns in the stars. I was only four years old, more prone to aimless daydreaming than structured visualization.

Yet, I still recognized how special this moment was. I idolized my father, but I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted to with him.

Now, here we were. Our backs to the ground, our eyes fixed on the vastness of space. It was quiet. It was comfortable. It was mesmerizing.

And I never wanted to stop looking up.

A few years later, I was in the middle of a school day when my mother showed up to sign me out of class.

She explained that my father had gotten injured on his way to work. He had slipped on some ice and fractured a couple vertebrae in his back during the ensuing fall.

My mother had scooped me from school early so that we could help look after him.

My father would ultimately be OK. But through his arduous recovery, my father kept reminiscing on one moment from his injury.

As he lay prone on the sidewalk, my father remembered looking up. He saw the pale blue of the morning sky. He saw the tops of the tree branches. He saw a few rogue birds who hadn’t migrated south for the winter.

It was as if my father was back staring up at the stars again. Indeed, the world around him faded away in that moment. My father felt no pain and sensed no panic.

He was at peace. And that sense of peace helped carry him through.

Looking up will do that.

Roughly a decade after all this, I went to Italy on a family vacation. A few days into the trip, I found myself inside the Sistine Chapel.

I was a teenager by now, full of confidence and oblivious to the lessons of my past. So, I was equal parts annoyed and perplexed when I was urged to glance upwards to the frescos on the ceiling.

Why were those painted all the way up there? I asked my parents as we left the vestibule. It makes no sense.

My parents offered up an answer that I can’t recall. And we moved on through the Vatican.

These days, I realize how misguided my question was. Indeed, the placement of the art was part of what made it so special — and what continues to spark amazement to this day.

Michaelangelo defied death to paint the elaborate scenes. After all, there were no automated bucket lifts in the 16th century, only wooden scaffolds.

The artist took this risk willingly to create a masterpiece. And he dared us to cast our gaze upwards to take it in.

We’ve done so in the Sistine Chapel — for centuries.

But it has become the exception, not the rule.

I had just finished a set of sit ups at the gym when I lay back on the workout bench.

There were two more sets to go, but I needed a moment to recover.

As I lay there, feeling the burning in my abs and thighs, I studied the ceiling. The banks of recessed florescent lights. The electrical conduit covers. The flat, even surface denoting the top of the room. And the white coat of paint covering it all.

It looked so blasé, so ordinary, so sterile. And I felt a bit wrong for staring up at it.

I might wax poetic about looking up at the stars, the tree branches, or the frescos. But staring in that direction has fallen out of favor. Indeed, we’re more likely to glance horizontally at our surroundings, or hunch over to read the smartphones in our hands.

Looking up is reserved for the compromised moments. When we’re counting sheep in bed, or to recover our muscles for the next set of reps. The vertical view is but temporary, and hardly worthy of illustration. So, we don’t bother to make that view notable.

But perhaps we should.

You see, our fixation with horizontal vistas has its limits. There is a sense of awe that comes with looking toward the horizon. And there’s a sense of adventure in heading off to see what’s beyond it.

Still, the truth of the matter is that nearly every accessible corner of this planet has been explored. Someone else has been to where we’re going. Someone else has uncovered the mysteries in our midst.

Looking up has no such baggage. The law of gravity proves that few have headed to where we now stare, and we’re unlikely to head there ourselves.

It’s our imagination that must run wild when staring at the vast expanses above us. The stars, the birds, the tree branches — they all provide a launching point. The rest of the journey lies between our ears.

Of course, we can’t always be out in the open. Many times, we find ourselves with a roof over our heads.

Such structures can block our view of the vast expanses above us. But they needn’t stymie our imaginations as well.

Michaelangelo was onto something when he wandered onto that scaffold with his paintbrush. He recognized that a ceiling is more than a protective edifice. It can be a canvas to what lies beyond — if we care to provide the inspiration.

It’s time that we follow his lead. That we view the act of looking up as more than a novelty case or a last resort. And that we prime ourselves to make such a view worth our while —regardless of where we take it in.

Looking up can yield some powerful perceptions. It’s time that we unlock them.