A moment of zen while mowing my lawn with beer.

I still have dreams.  Even at what is statistically the middle of my life.   And I still have every intention of working hard, and making them come true.  But I realized something today...

I don't ever need to be any happier than I am right now. 

Even if nothing in my life ever gets "better", I've already succeeded in everything that counts.

It happened while I was mowing.

I stopped in the back corner of my yard to move a branch that had fallen out of the woods that border my property.  Before I re-started my 'yard-machine', I sat for a moment.  Took a long swallow from my beer.  The wind was in the trees and the waving branches sent dapples of sunlight dancing over the freshly-mown grass.  Our lunk-head dog was capering about thirty feet away, trying to nip a butterfly out of the air.  Someone came to the slider on the deck to call him in -- from that distance I couldn't tell if it was my wife or my daughter -- either way, someone who owns my whole heart.

Then the zen came over me.

Who, ever -- in the history of everything -- could seriously ask for more than this?

The breeze and the sun on your face, the taste of a good beer, domestic tranquility.

Family.

Despite any imagined 'problem', despite any unfilled dream, I felt all the contentment in the world.  As much as any one man could bear.  It all rushed in and I was frozen.  For nearly ten full minutes, I was paralyzed.  Staring at the woods, watching the wind in the branches, staring at the grass I'd just cut, staring at the deck on the back of the house which contained every reason for being alive.

I'll leave you to guess how I responded physically, but... you know... keep in mind what a manly stud I am.  Try not to assume I did anything too wimpy because -- whatever...

Anyway.  That'a pretty much it.  Why don't you go read some other part of the internet now?