Top Ten List of Significant Moments (big or small, life-changing, epiphany, or slight shifts in the way you see the world) in your Life

1. Spending a year abroad in Germany between high school and college and becoming as “German” as possible.
   
2. Realizing what it really meant to be married at about year 13 and still learning.
   
3. Having twins and an instantly becoming a family of four.
   
4. Realizing that I was an equal partner in the Navy and not just on the outside looking into someone else’s organization.
   
5. That all of politics comes down to an individual looking out for his or her personal interests in a structure that we call government, and that government is supposed to be a societal structure for the benefit of the group and not the individual.
   
6. That there are extremely intelligent, passionate, and articulate individuals that can have the exact opposite opinion of mine, even when my opinion seems like the only possible solution.
   
7. The moment when my parents looked up to me for advice and leaned on me for the first time.
   
8. That I learn more from my failures than my successes.
   
9. That history matters and I need to learn more, plus it’s not boring.
10. The thing that truly motivates me is a challenge.