Running for Simplicity

I haven’t been running for a while. It’s such a simple thing to do, but it’s also an activity that I can easily forget. When life becomes complicated, simple things tend to be ignored.

Last Sunday afternoon, I decided to put all other things aside and put on my casual wear for some outdoor activities. I jogged along the street in the neighborhood. Soon afterwards, I came to an open ground. There were no other people there. The sun was setting, with rays of light gently showering down upon the grass and trees. I was out there, all by myself, immersed in the stillness of nature, full of positive energy.

I took a deep breath, stretched my arms and legs, and started running. It was such a distant but pleasant sensation all coming back to me.

My past experiences of running kept flashing back. I started running when I was a boy. My mother helped me make a pair of sandbags, and I bound them onto my calves, to add that extra bit of ‘burden’ so that I could gain more strength through running. I quite enjoyed running at that time. Then in one of those days, I grew taller than my elder brother. He wasn’t quite happy about it, but my mother said it was all because I was out for running more often.

I kept running on and off throughout my teenage years and university days. I wouldn’t say I was a great fan for running, but I took it for granted that running was among the few activities that I could do to help maintain my physical fitness. It was a few years back when I was in Hong Kong that I started fully enjoying running again, because there was a Waterfront Park there, and there was a specific path for runners along the Tolo harbor. I wasn’t living very far from there, so cycling to the park and then running along the path became a joyous thing to do, particularly after a whole day of work.

After the Sunday running experience, I wished I could reserve running as part of my normal daily activities. It seems to be a good way to end my working days, and start the evenings afresh. Some people run for fun or physical strength, and others may run for good companionship with friends, whereas I am running for simplicity. 

In a world where procrastination becomes a pastime because of the complexity of a multi-tasking life, running has obviously become a simple but luxurious thing to do, and it certainly helps to simplify not just my life, but also myself. My goals and directions couldn't be clearer throughout running.