Truth-telling time.

I don’t floss my teeth.

I know I should. I always plan to. But then I don’t.

I need to exercise more frequently. I try. I go to the gym three or four times a week but often half-heartedly run around the track. Or I put on gym clothes but never quite make it.

I love peanut butter. Peanut butter is legitimately my favorite food and I eat it every single day. (I’m sure the peanut butter obsession combined with the lack of exercise contribute to the extra 10-15 pounds I’m carrying.)

And I LOVE Diet Mountain Dew. It is my one vice (well, that and the peanut butter). I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have two or three cans per day I couldn’t function in life.

Sometimes I feel guilty about my bad habits.

Sometimes I look at these habits and consider changing.

I’d probably be a little healthier if I cut out fatty peanut butter and drank less soda and ran a little harder at the gym and flossed my teeth.

I might feel better and have more energy too.

Maybe I would be a better person.

Maybe I would find the key to a perfect life.

Because it seems like that’s what we’re supposed to be chasing, right???

The perfectly lived perfectly healthy perfect life?!?

So many opinions and studies and best practices and guidelines and anecdotal evidence and studies and celebrity endorsements…

Everywhere we turn we are inundated with how to do life RIGHT!!!

The latest fad diet and specialty water and skin care regimens and organic everything and oils and cleanses and exercise routines and parenting tactics.

The best way to do just about ANYTHING!!!!!

No gluten or carbs or sugars or dairy or caffeine or carbonation or red meat or oxidants or harsh chemicals!

Go green! Become a minimalist!! Simplify!! Create a capsule wardrobe!

Plant a garden and compost waste and learn to can!

Clean the house using only water and these perfect rags!

Buy a $4,000 water filtration system to ensure the optimal pH to cure every ailment!! (Never mind that $4,000 buys an ENTIRE HOUSE for a homeless family in Guatemala via Food For The Poor).

Oh, and in the meantime raise perfect prodigy children at home.

I’m tired, you guys.

I get overwhelmed by it all.

I wonder if in the quest to do life perfectly we forget to really live???

Are we remembering to LIVE???

Because the TRUTH is, there are a few really important things that deserve my time and attention and money and efforts.

And so many others that just…DON’T.

Most of it is NOISE.

So, here’s what matters to me…

A warm, safe home with two loving parents and plenty of healthy foods to fill our tummies.

A loving church community, daily prayers, and my best efforts at a spiritual foundation.

Our family gathered around the kitchen table. Arguing, bickering, laughing, sharing about our day…sometimes over grilled chicken and steamed veggies but other times over fast food tacos on Tuesday.

An outlet for active little bodies to move and stretch their muscles which means soccer for some and basketball for others and obstacle courses over couch cushions for the little ones.

The best education we can afford and access to medical and dental care.

The time and space to spend an afternoon at the park or out for a hike together or even with each of us holed up in different corners…reading or playing video games or baking chocolate chip cookies.

And an atmosphere of utter gratitude at the abundant blessings in our lives and the permission to relax…and really LIVE this beautifully imperfect life.

Is there really anything else??

Isn’t the rest just…NOISE??

Now stop for just a minute.

Drown out ALL the noise.

What matters most to YOU???

Do that.