Ten pounds of goods, five-pound box; it doesn’t take a collection of geniuses to figure out where this story is going. It’s a problem of scarcity as ancient as Cain and Abel, and one I find myself confronted with almost daily.

This past week I ventured back to my home state of of Texas for work as I had 10 meetings planned over a three-and-a-half-day period. If you’ve ever been to Texas, you already know that everything is spread out, and getting somewhere without a vehicle is unheard of, so the commute to and from each location sometimes lasts as long as the meeting itself. With only so many hours in day and so many days in a week, I found myself squeezing every last minute out of my time in Texas.

In the midst of the whirlwind trip, I was struck quite unexpectedly with a moment of serenity. I awoke at 4 a.m. to make the four-hour drive from Dallas to Houston and was sure this trip would be more of a trudge. Almost two hours on the road with the effects of my coffee as the only subsistence, something began to dawn on me. Literally. From the southbound lane of I-45, looking out my driver-side window, I began to see the subtle magnificence of the sky turning from the color of polished steel to a gradient azure. The sun had begun to peek from the horizon, and I could not help but avert my eyes from the ever-approaching highway asphalt to marvel at the star-rushed splendor. In my life there have been countless sunrises, but only a handful have I actually been witness to first hand, and never has one been more well-timed for the nourishment of my spirit than this one.

I often schedule too many tasks in a day to try to make the most of the limited time there is. I don’t foresee myself stopping this practice. However, within each day I believe there are hidden gems of serenity, enigmatic moments when, despite manmade obstacles, harmony takes the rule of the day and rests peacefully at your side.

— David Coker, advertising manager