I have thought about it all weekend, and I have decided I don’t want to live like Daniel Suelo. Having no money, eating food from dumpsters, and living in a cave are just not for me. I say this with all seriousness. I really have thought about it. It is alarming to realize how much his ideas actually make sense to me. He is not crazy. He is a truth-teller and is brave enough to live his truth. He is a truth-liver.

I know this because I have done some of my own truth-living, in much smaller ways. It is nowhere as impressive as living in the wild, but when I discovered what “natural child-birth” was, I knew immediately that it was what I wanted to do. It was what I had to do. It did not matter if anyone else agreed. It made sense to me and the core of my being needed to live out this truth. I knew that I would be false in trying to do it any other way and, in the end, would find it more difficult than any pain I might have to go through in foregoing pain medication.

I hope you have known that feeling of absolute truth – it is crystal clear and when it comes upon you, there is no alternative. I have been lucky enough to have this level of clarity several times in my life and the experience has always led to huge, scary, life changes for the better, even if I could not see where I was going at the time.

Living my truth in smaller ways means that, everyday, I have to find ways to make my life more the way I want it to be. It isn’t easy and doesn’t always make me feel proud. Paying attention to the standards of being “plenty perfect” means recognizing when I am trying too hard to make everything work just right. It means I have to recognize when I am doing something out of a perceived obligation or imagined expectation and stop myself, because that really does not serve anyone in the long run. Sometimes, I just have to break down and make eggs and waffle sundaes for dinner, because that is the easiest thing to do. In my world, ice cream for dinner just makes sense sometimes.

The rest of the time, I actively entertain fantasies of escaping and living “off the grid.” For me, this does not involve a cave or dumpsters. I imagine I will live someplace lovely – someplace by the beach, where my friends and kids would want to visit me in my simple, but architecturally interesting, house with lush gardens to provide my food and lots of flowers. Is that too much to ask? In the meantime, I will keep my chickens, plant my garden (and try to remember to eat the food I grow), try to keep my plenty perfect standards in mind, and look for those bits of clarity and truth to lift me up and guide me.