“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway
I am currently “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen E. Ambrose. It is a book about Lewis and Clark’s famous journey. They traveled to the Pacific Ocean from the East Coast of the Early United States. It primarily tells the story through the perspective of Meriwether Lewis. His journal is the authors primary source. It also includes Thomas Jefferson’s relationship to the journey. When Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on their adventure, he couldn’t wait to hear how it was going. Jefferson didn’t receive any news about the expedition until a year and a half after they departed from St. Louis, Missouri. Imagine sending someone on a journey, and not hearing anything from them for a year and a half. In today’s age, we need constant updates to know how something is going. We can even share our location in real time. When Lewis and Clark explored the American west, cell phones and GPS were not even close to being a thing. So Jefferson had to wait a long time before he knew how it was going. Then he had to wait longer after that to receive any updates. He had time to dwell and think about the news he had received. That is a lost art in our lives today. We live in a society where we are supposed to have perfect reactions in real time. If we don’t, we risk being irrelevant. We can react to news. However, we have to remember that we might not have the full context of it yet. Instead of letting your outrage be known in the moment, don’t rush your reaction. Take your time. If you don’t like what happened, be angry, but withhold the blame. Wait until more information comes in, and give yourself time to reflect first.
Last winter break, the family and I took a trip to Orlando, Florida. We spent our first day hanging out at Discovery Cove. Discovery Cove is a nature resort where you can spend the day with dolphins, flamingos, stingrays, and other amazing wildlife. The package deal with them also included a day pass to SeaWorld. We took advantage and spent our next day there. The park was crowded, but we got to see a lot of amazing wildlife. One of my favorite parts of the park was the penguin exhibit. We were pretty close to them, and we got a taste of what their environment is like. It was freezing at the exhibit. My son and I stayed because everyone else said it was too cold. We were the only ones who stayed for any amount of time.
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