The list of things we don’t know is infinitely longer than the list of things we do. The James Webb Telescope is one of humanity’s creations that adds a lot to both lists. Designing and building the telescope was audacious. Putting it in orbit behind the moon was ambitious. When scientists then began publishing the first images, it was a humbling reminder of our place in the stars.

Webb’s first image was of galactic light from 4.6 billion years ago, but the telescope soon will be able to capture images from 13.7 billion years ago — a “mere” 100 million years after scientists think The Big Bang occurred. The math is incomprehensible. For example, I could count to a billion if I’d started the morning of my fifth birthday, continued for eight hours a day, every day, and survived to be 100 years old. As a reminder, the Milky Way alone has around 400 billion stars.

U.S. Engineering has generated billions of successes. We pivoted from metalworking in the late 19th century to mechanical construction in the early 20th century. We built munitions plants during World War I and World War II, opened offices around the country, created proprietary software and internal communications networks, developed conceptual estimating tools, and now build some of the most important and complex mechanical projects in the world.

There’ve been countless quiet successes as well — like friendly voices on the phone, help on a bid, or a hand with moving some pipe into place. Every day, a member of the U.S. Engineering team does something to build our collective legacy and make us better.

Responding to Challenges

Challenges remind me of something that a friend told me recently: “We’re just on the ride; we’re not controlling it.” He wasn’t minimizing free will or belittling faith. He also wasn’t suggesting that we stop trying to get better. He simply pointed out the importance of humility in the face of the world.

Heartbreak and disappointment are inevitable parts of the human experience. The only question is how we react and respond. In Cormack McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, the well-connected prisoner Emilio Perez asks 16-year-old adventurer John Grady, “The world wants to know… if you are brave?” Tomorrow depends on today, which comes from yesterday, and so on and so forth back to at least 13.8 billion years ago.

We’re just the latest version of DNA, and while “brave” for some people means riding a bull, for others it means just getting out of bed.

Experiencing the Vastness of Life

August 5 was the 75th anniversary of the Mann Gulch fire. So I’m reminded that on a recent trip there, standing atop Mann Gulch, staring down at all the memorials dotting the hillside to the east and the enormous channel of the Missouri River running down from the Continental Divide to the west, my wife Leigh and I felt small. The stunning geography is matched only by its profound history. From the Native American tribes who lived there for generations and whose 1,000-year-old petroglyphs still dot the limestone walls, to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, ghosts from the past abound.

The world — and for that matter the universe and beyond — is old and rugged. We’re all here for a short period of time. U.S. Engineering’s existence alone has been longer than any of us have been around. What we choose to do with our time is up to all of us individually.

When Leigh and I discarded our shoes and socks to wade into the Missouri River after a long day of hiking, the water was cool, and the rocks we stood on were smooth and mossy. I was reminded of the words William Clark wrote while camping in that exact canyon with Meriwether Lewis in 1805: “I have always held it little short of criminality to anticipate evils, I will allow it to be a good, comfortable road until I am compelled to believe otherwise.”

I find the humility that the world forces upon us to be comforting, whether it’s the power of a river, the vastness of space, or just a hike through history. Ultimately, humility is optimistic because it implies learning and growing. Humility is about knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow, but not because of anything that I or anybody else did.

The sun does not look forward to seeing me or appreciating any of the work I do, nor does it care when I fail. It just exists. But maybe, at some point in the distant future, another telescope will be able to look back in time at all of us and see the light we’ve created together.

“I find the humility that the world forces upon us to be comforting, whether it’s the power of a river, the vastness of space, or just a hike through history. Ultimately, humility is optimistic because it implies learning and growing.”