The Gift

I remember when I first started training for marathons.  I’d have bad days.  I can clearly remember being out on my base 5 miler and being exhausted and miserable.  These were not even the ‘hard’ workouts.  These were just a 45 minute easy run loop from my office at lunch time.

I can remember being out there in the middle of that run and everything felt hard.  It wasn’t fun.  It wasn’t invigorating or fulfilling; it was just hard.  I remember stopping to catch my breath and a big smile came to me.

I remember realizing what exactly it was that I was doing and how lucky I was to be able to do it.  I smiled a big smile and was filled with, well, with a form of joy I suppose, because I knew that I was doing something that I could not have done in previous years and I was doing something that most people could not.

It was still physically hard but it was mentally easy from that point on and in subsequent runs.  No matter how bad it got I would always remember to smile and consider how lucky I was.  I continue to live that way.  Whether I achieve my goals or not I’m always happy to have been given the gift.  I’m always happy to be able to try.

You have to know that this life is a gift.  It’s a gift with a time limit.  The time you spend reading or listening to this you will never get back, I thank you for that and I hope it’s worth it for you.  Every run, every day, every meal, every time you make love is a grand gift and you should be in awe of that.  It should make you smile and cry when you understand the preciousness of this life.

But instead we complain.  We stuff down tasteless food.  We don’t hold on to our loves fiercely enough.

We don’t appreciate the gift.  Each day, each hour, minute and second is a precious gift.  You literally do not have time to be miserable.  What kind of idiots invest their days with melancholy when they realize that those days are the only ones?

Invest your days with joy.  Invest your days with hope.  Invest your days with the fulfilling realization that these ticking moments are a gift.

And for heaven’s sake don’t push your love away until tomorrow.  Hold your love.  Pull them to you and hold them fiercely, love them fiercely because this love is now!  This love is not tomorrow or sometime in the future. Don’t dissipate your love by pushing it away to the future.  Love now.  Love fiercely and with all your might.

Appreciate the gift my friends.  Share that gift with someone you love.

Do it now.

And I’ll see you out there.