Make health my hobby? No thank you.

I used to read a lot of health and wellness books. These are books that tell you, in minute detail, what you need to do to live a long life with the maximum number of "quality" years.

These books spell out how you should eat, what exercise you need to do, how you should manage stress, what you need to do to keep your brain young, etc.

I once figured out (this is true) that if I were to implement everything these books told me to do in order to achieve optimal health, I would have to get up every morning at something like 3:00 a.m. to fit it all in. I'm not kidding.

Going under the assumption that my evenings are too packed and unpredictable to regularly schedule any sort of exercise or self-improvement activities, I need to relegate health and wellness solely to the morning hours. And if I were truly doing everything I'm supposed to do in order to be a robust, happy person, I would need like three or four hours every morning.

That list would include (but is certainly not limited to):

• Aerobic exercise
• Strength training
• Flexibility exercises
• Balance exercises
• Brain building (i.e., learn something new, like say a language you don't know)
• Bible reading
• Meditation/breathing exercises
• Breakfast (THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY...they think)
• Brushing and flossing
• Something else I'm sure I'm forgetting

I don't have the time to do all of those things, so I do some of them. And I'm fine with it.

I haven't always been fine with it, by the way. For several years, I agonized over not hitting 10,000 steps every day, not lifting weights, not learning Tai Chi, not stretching, not not not not not not. I was so about what I was "not" doing that I never recognized all the good things I WAS doing.

I once read a book in which a doctor suggested making your health your hobby. The implication was that your spare time should be spent learning and implementing all of the things that science and personal experience show to be good for your body, mind and general well-being.

Which is great, except that in spending so much time trying to build a better life, you leave yourself no time to actually live that life.

So I've finally (FINALLY) learned to do the best that my schedule and self-discipline will allow and to be happy with that. And I'm so relieved. All of the "nots" above were, ironically, killing me. Now I feel so much more content.

In case you're wondering, I do get out and run four days a week, and it's never for more than a half hour at a time. I don't lift weights, I don't stretch, I don't meditate. I DO read the Bible daily now and I DO eat breakfast, brush and floss without fail.

And I feel great. The burden of having to be perfect with my health was too much.

It only took me five years or so to get that through my thick head.