If I were to roll by back my life in a “Sportscenter Top 10”-style montage, it’s interesting to realize how many of those moments would be described with the word awe.

Awe seems to sit somewhere between surprise and wonder and humility and just not being able to wrap my head around what I am seeing.

Nature has definitely been a pattern within this pattern. Like when we first got out of the car after a long road trip to the Redwood forests of Northern California. I remember standing there, mouth open, a confused look on my face, staring up at the canopy and wondering how this could even be real.

But sometimes it’s been in moments where I’ve just seen things with new eyes. Like the time last season I was skiing with my family. We came around a corner and the valley where we live opened up below us, the sun was shining beautifully, and together we smiled our way through soft, creamy turns. In that moment, I was in awe of my life and how incredibly fortunate I have been with work and health and family to even have a chance at such a moment.

The most recent wasn’t around nature or people, it was a feat of engineering. I’ve always loved space and I’d come “this close” to grabbing a last-minute flight to watch the final space shuttle launch, but I’d never been up close and person with a lot of these things I’d always been inspired by. Last week while in DC, we stopped by the museum that is now home to space shuttle Discovery. While struggling the comprehend the engineering and planning and technology that went into this incredible machine, my wife snapped this candid photo of my lost in another moment of awe.

What I love about this feeling of wonder – and something I was reminded of during my “Forty Before Forty” project – is that awe is in so many places, some of which aren’t all that far away from where I’m sitting as I type this. As long as I keep getting out there, they keep turning up.

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