In a quest to understand who and what I was as a human being, I devoted my university studies to anthropology with minors in history and sociology. From the Leakeys' proto-human hominid discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge, to how we evolved to then organize social groups and began to record our history, to modern times as millions and then billions organized into complicated social structures and societies separated into nation states, I dug in. If I could fathom how all that came to be, I would know who I was, find my place in the world, and what path I might follow to make a difference. And I wanted to make a difference in this world. How utterly innocent.

Along the way, my liberal arts program required me to include several credit hours of elective studies. I had all but exhausted those, including a fencing class (touché!), when down to my last semester, I had to pick something – anything – to satisfy the remaining requirement and graduate. Little did I know how a near random course selection would dramatically alter the entire perspective of my world, universal view, and waking life.

You guessed it: Astronomy 100. Really.

In that 2-credit-hour class held in an auditorium with many whose questions to the professor keep referring to "astrology," my mind was swept off the planet, sailing though the solar system into the galaxy and universe beyond, probing the nearly incomprehensible expanse and posing questions with answers we are all too young to know. My mind went supernova, blown wide open to the totality of being and life. No drugs need be involved. It led to a lifetime of self-assigned study, following brilliant minds pushing the edges of what we think we know, simultaneously revealing the immense vastness of what we don't. I became deeply humbled and grateful to be experiencing the galactically and extraordinarily rare privilege of a sentient life, and more, a life in this safe and secure place on the planet.

And that is what eventually led me to the past 3 decades of my life's work: to serve others in their lives, to help them find a place in which to live in happiness, and hopefully to prosper.

Life is such a privilege! Pass it on.