"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change." Buddha
My friend Annie taught me how to run long distances. that is a miracle in itself if you know that I hate to run and my natural inclination once I start running  is to ask myself what the heck I'm doing running. But Annie challenged me to join her in running the Berlin half marathon during Vic's last deployment. I'm not sure if it was the promise of spending time training with someone as cool as Annie, the thought of running through the city where my mom grew up ( on the East side) or the insanity that grips you when you are seperated from the love of your life, but I took the challenge.
During one of the training runs, Annie taught me something that has held true in life as it does in running. When you run and you get tired or you lose your focus you start to slump over and look only at the road in front of you. This is bad for your physical and your mental stamina. You inevitably take smaller steps, decrease your stride and begin working much harder to complete your run. Life is like that, when we lose our focus on what is important, when we begin to concentrate on only today or the hill in front of us and forget our long term goals and dreams, we wear ourselves out. The stress any given day holds in store for us can cause us to slump over our shoulders and decrease our stride. We also become short sighted. How many mornings do we run past the beauty in our own front yard because our focus is out of whack? How much better would it be to realize the miracle of the day that has been given us, the beauty of the things in our life that we forget to notice and straighten up our stance?
Here is the challenge. Take a deep breath in and square your shoulders, and walk with purpose. Imagine on the horizon your dreams and your goals and set your strides to get there. You've got what it takes to go the distance, if you are mindful of where your focus lies.