Updated by: May 13, 2026
The Peak
There is a photo of me inside the Pantheon in Rome. I am 33 or 34. I am wearing a bright blue and yellow jacket.
I am smiling. Not for the camera. Just smiling.
We were in Rome for a Stromae concert. But somewhere between the music and the city we found ourselves inside one of the most remarkable buildings ever constructed. Nearly two thousand years old, its dome a perfect sphere, an open oculus at the top letting in the sky.
I just stood there and looked up.
My wife took the photo. When I look at it now, I think – ‘that’s a man at the peak of his life.’ Not because anything extraordinary was happening. Just because he was present, somewhere extraordinary, and happy.
Do you have a photo like that?
Most of us do. A moment captured that holds everything about who you were at a specific point in time. The right light. The right place. A smile that wasn’t performed.
Travel tends to produce those photos. Not because it makes us better versions of ourselves. Because it puts us somewhere unfamiliar enough that we stop performing and just exist.
The Pantheon in Rome. A blue and yellow jacket. A Stromae concert.
Whatever your version is, I hope you’ve kept the photo.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
