Turning 31

As many of you know I'm not much of a history buff. One of my only interests from American history is the Lewis & Clark expedition, mostly because of its intercultural significance and the endurance that the people on the journey displayed.

When I first read the (condensed) journals, I was struck by one particular passage written by Meriwether Lewis on his birthday, Sunday August 18, 1805. Now at the same point in my own journey, I reflect on the passage deeply, and would like to share it with you now:

"This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had, in all human probability, now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the happiness of the human race or to advance the information of the succeeding generation.

I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now sorely feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. But since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future to redouble my exertions and at least endeavor to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself."