What is really most important

By Jeff Becraft

So I am trying to reform my diet…

One thing is I am trying to cut down on processed sugar.
“You’re a type I diabetic… you eat sugar?”
“Is a 40-pound chicken a big chicken?”
So I am trying to cut down on that… and I am making progress.

Another reform is cutting down on salt.  Now, I used to be a salt-a-holic. I would even put salt on things before I tasted it. Years ago, my favorite mother-in-law (I always tell her she is my favorite mother-in-law) turned me on to kosher salt. And it wasn’t just any kind of kosher salt; it was a certain brand that is hard to find around here. Regular salt just seemed pale in comparison. I would just load that on to everything.

I have not gone salt-less… I have just cut down… but I would say significantly cut down.

Every once in a while, Brenda and I will have a pizza date. I will pick up a pizza and we set up the card table in the living room and watch something we want to watch.

During dinner, I made the comment to Brenda, “Wow… this pizza is really salty.” Now, we are talking about mister salt lover himself here. I loved salt on everything.

But even after cutting back for just a few weeks, I could tell the difference. Now things seem overly salty or overly sweet.

I am starting to get down to the real taste of things. I am getting down to the true essence. One dictionary defines essence as: “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.”

I wonder in life how many times we keep adding things on the surface… and we get used to that… and then that becomes our norm and somewhere down under is what is really most important. But we really don’t recognize that because we have gotten used to what is on the surface.

I think it is always good to evaluate our lives and write down: What really is most important to me? What are the values that I hold on to? What do I really want? What do I really want to do? What am I building my life on? Etc.

Then, instead of simply throwing on an additive on the surface to make life taste good, we can hold onto what is really most important. And that is a worthwhile experience.

Jeff Becraft is the Interim Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Youth Corps is a life-changing leadership development experience that inspires high school students to be leaders in the Midlands and beyond. You can connect with Jeff at  [email protected].