Even though I had come back to the office on Friday, only four people showed up given that it was the day after the major “bomb cyclone” that hit the entire Northeast. It was quiet, and I was actually able to get a lot of catch up work done. Today, everything was buzzing as it always was. It was as though nothing had changed since I left.

It always seems a little hard to come back to the everyday life that you lead when you were away in a place so foreign and different where you actually felt like your mind expanded. How do you then properly convey what you learned? Does anyone actually really care to hear it? Well, why would people care that much that I suddenly have this obsession and deep love for elephants just because I saw them up close and fed them and saw them travel in herds, playing and bathing and taking care of their young?

Here in New York, the “concrete” jungle that we love so much, we’re so far removed from the elephants and the rhinos of Africa. We live in our own bubble, ignorant of the daily struggles that others go through simply trying to live, and also risking their lives to ensure that future generations know the beauty and intelligence of these creatures. Suddenly today, standing at my standing desk and working at my laptop with a large monitor attached, my work suddenly felt so meaningless. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my job or the people; it’s quite the opposite of that. It just felt like in comparison to the conservation work that people were doing in South Africa and all over the African continent, my work seemed so trivial.