Realization

Hopes. Dreams. Drive. Determination. All of these are healthy, active means to achieve what? Happiness, perhaps. But as I was running today and sweat was oozing into every available crevice, I realized something: it's all about realization. Those Ah-Ha moments. Those moments when it all makes sense. Those are the moments we live for. The moments where happiness and contentment are found. I have searched my whole life for peace. Perhaps that is why I practice yoga. And perhaps that is why I am drawn to all things involving nature, because as a child, and even now, I find peace and contentment outside next to a big old tree. Happiness is found in tiny moments. It is also found in the search; the journey. I suppose I always imagined it would hit me like a tornado. That I would just in one moment be happy. That I would look up from my book and my life would make sense. Everything would be perfectly neat and tidy. But I realized that isn't the case. It's now. It's this very moment even as I type. Because I love to write. I can express my self better with words not spoken. It's finding the simple joy in running beneath the heat, the bugs, the aching joints, the allergies: it's beautiful to dig underneath that and see why I'm running to begin with. I love being warm, I love being outside, I love my health and that I can run or walk if I choose. I'm not in life to race, to be the prettiest, to be the smartest, to be the best at anything, I'm here to realize my potential. MY potential. And realizing that maybe my potential isn't meant to be astonishing and great and worthy of recognition. It is simply mine, and when I'm 93 and someone is wiping my ass I want to feel content. I want to realize that I have lived my life as God intended. I have done so many stupid things; I mean so many it's exhausting to think about. But when I do think I now realize there was so much living going on in that moment. There was so much happening in my life that I was growing and experiencing and changing. And I relish every single moment I have lived. All of the pain, all of the joy, all of it happened because I was living. And all the while I have begun to realize who I am. And I hope and pray that every day I wake up I will realize some new potential, some new thing that I am here to know, to do, or to experience. That is beauty, that is life. Every small step matters. Getting to choose in which direction I step and finding the beauty on my chosen path is my realization.