Chapter 5--Living life to the fullest

Recently,while watching a tv programme on a lively discussion on the amount of money working children give to their parents, a fairly interesting topic on living life to the fullest was broached. The children argue that the main reason that they are reluctant to give more of their salary money to their parents is because they would want to live their life to the fullest. That is, they prefer to use more of their salary on material items or touring around the world which will keep them satisfied and truly happy. Now, this is not a debate on whether these group of "children" are filial or not but more of the kinds of principle they live their lifes on. How many of us have actually seriously thought of living our life to the fullest? Normally the response we get from people when we ask them how is their life lately is usually answered with either a nonchalent or really helpless " pass one day is one day pass lah". So what is exactly living life to the fullest? Is it simply to constantly keep ourselves happy by doing things that we like or is it to do things that are deemed meaningful and which will truly enriched our lives? Let us just take a look at a seemingly simple issue like saving money. Those who advocate living life to the fullest might argue that it is meaningless to save large amount of money just to enjoy life when we retire etc because life is so unpredictable that who knows one day something fatal will just happened to you and you won't have the chance then to even enjoy the "reap" of your hard work. It is interesting also to note that it is usually the young people who habour this type of belief. On the other side of the coin, older people like most of our parents would usually advise us to cultivate a habit of saving money to prepare for "rainy days". Imagine that you really live your life to old age but yet have spend most of your fortune when young. How terrible would it be then to realize that you are left with practically nothing and that your own children are reluctant to give you money because they want to live their life to the fullest? Yes, it could very well be a vicious cycle if we are not careful with it. Perhaps the only consolation is that at least you have truly live your life to the fullest from young.

Having say that, how important then is living our life to the fullest? To me, it is very important although I have not really thought about or understand fully how to really achieve that goal. Although I feel that it is fundamentally important to engage in activites that we like such as touring around the world or even simply learning things that we enjoy or even to fulfill our thrist for material things, I feel that it is also vital to engage in meaningful activities that allow us to connect with our society or even the world. In another words, though I really also hope to be able to tour the world one day, I think that it is nevertheless important for me to at least participates once on activities that could bring joy not only to myself but also to others. Even though I have always envy and admire other people who fly to other countries to lend their hands to less fortunate people or during times of diaster, I often found myself procrastinating without any valid reason wherever I am given the chance to do so. It is a strange feeling because though you wanted to do it, something is just holding you back. I believe that it could most probably be that I am still not totally ready and committed to do this type of things but I really hope that one day I would be able to totally able to "let myself go". In fact it is not the only thing that I found myself "holding back", I have always also wanted to learn more about computer applications or to learn more about cooking but I have also always give excuses such as no time or money to "console" myself even though sometimes deep down in my heart I know that it is untrue. Perhaps it is what the chinese have always say"li bu cou xin" meaning that even though one had the heart or desire to do something, one does not yet have the abilities to do it.

Regardless of whatever reasons I had given above, I do seriously hope once again that I would be able to truly do all the things that I desire so that I can have no regret in my life. Perhaps that will be the complete definition of what living life to the fullest meant to me-living life without regret. Although I am still working hard towards reaching this goal, I do wish that eventually I would be able to attain my goal.

So have you live your life to the fullest yet?