I have seen a thousand things you could not dream of.

I witnessed the sun rise over the Tigris and Euphrates, and gazed into the veiled fog at the summit of Mt Fuji. In Tel Aviv I surfed, in Basel I floated, into Copenhagen Bay I jumped. I skied in Aomori, fished in Alaska, trekked through Ankor Wat, and dined in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa. Dubrovnik, Sardinia, Korfu, Koh Samui, Boracay, Jeju - each, a playground of sorts. The stained glass of the Sagrada Familia dazzled; the Hagia Sophia's dome awed. The megacity nights overwhelmed me in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, and Shanghai.

But what did I DO?

I wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence.

I started out with the best of intentions. I thought I was answering my nation's call in its time of need. I thought I was dedicating myself to a force of good. I thought I knew what mattered, but it turned out that the perspective I had as a naive 25 year old was incomplete. I thought what I was doing was important, but reflecting back on my years of service, it was not.

My sphere of influence shrunk until in encompassed only the two little boys I brought into this world, and the woman who walked through all of this with me. I found that those things were more than enough.