Living your life to the fullest

Live Your Life to the Fullest!
Introduction: Living to the fullest is accurately described in the quote of Abraham Lincoln, “And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” So let me ask you at the outset. Are you living your life to the fullest? By that I mean are you inspired, are you motivated to live? Is it a joy for you to face a new day, every day? Do you pursue your dreams passionately and do you feel that you are contributing to the society around you? Have you found real meaning of life? If you are saying ‘no’ to any of the questions above, this article is for you. In this article, I will be giving you some points that will help you to live your life to the fullest and find real meaning in your life.
Discover your purpose/passion: May I take the audacity to ask you, “Why are you here on planet earth?” What would your answer be to that? What’s your purpose in life? What are you passionate about? If you want to live your life to the fullest, you need to live for a purpose as the saying goes, “The purpose of life is to have a purposeful life”. To experience a life that is lived to the fullest, you got to discover your passion and your purpose, for it is in pursuing your purpose in life that you will find true meaning in your life. You will find your life worth living. Can you imagine Sachin Tendulkar without Cricket or Mother Teresa without Love or for that matter Bill Gates without Windows Software? These people are remembered for they discovered their true purpose in their lives and then they gave themselves to it fully. Your purpose may be to be a Singer, or to act in films or to teach in a school or college or to romance machines by being an engineer or it could even be to serve people through expounding the spiritual truths behind the mundane religious rituals. Discover your purpose in life and you will discover a new YOU.
Plan your route: Once you have discovered why you are here, now you need to know how you reach your purpose and passion. You need to chalk out your course to reach your goal. You need to decide on your short term goals and long term goals. Your long term goal would also be the place of your purpose or passion. You may reach there in the next 15 years or 10 years. But then you also got to plan a route that it every day pushing you ahead towards that goal and so you also have the short term goals in picture. So if you plan to be businessperson one day, you would want to complete your graduation in the next 3 years, then maybe you would plan to do MBA in the following 2 years and then work for some time as a Managing Executive in a good company that would give you a good experience of the way a business runs and then when you think enough is enough, you embark on your own and jump on to your ultimate passion. Planning your route and walking on it every day will help you to live everyday meaningfully knowing that what you do every day is not purposeless but serving to that greater purpose in your life. You will become excited as you have your passion and purpose in front of your eyes and the everyday mundane activities would turn into exciting events.
Change your perspective: How you view the world, decides where you reach in life. How you view the world decides whether you will find a fulfilled life or an empty life. Your perspective towards life is very important in keeping you happy and upbeat in life. The difference between those who find their lives fulfilled and those who don’t is their perspective, how they look at it. Do you look at the glass half filled or half empty? Do you see the rose balancing on thorns or blooming despite of thorns? Do you see opportunity in the difficulty or the difficulty in the opportunity? Your answers will show you your perspective. If you bear a negative perspective, you have to make efforts to change and graduate to an optimistic perspective. A person who views his future with hope, his present with joy and his past with gratitude is the person who will find fulfillment in his or her life. Things will start looking better when you give them a better look. Indeed “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
Take Action: Action is momentum and momentum is life. If you are not taking action on your goals, you are dead. The water that flows brings life, but the water that is stagnant brings death and disease. One bold action of faith will release an event or series of corresponding actions and finally you will come to realize your goals. When you want to live your life to the fullest you should be daily taking actions that are giving momentum to your life and the momentum will bring in the excitement in your life, the momentum will help you to reach your goals in life. If you sit thinking what to do and how to do too long, you would invite pessimism and doubt in your life and that doubt and pessimism will keep you away from taking action and if you don’t take an action you won’t have momentum and you will not see your goals realized which will further trouble you into depression and feeling of failure. Action is antidote to depression and negativism. Actions should start with improving yourself, your life. Take daily action that will take you to the next level. When you become unbeatable than nothing can stop you from achieving your goal and then life will be fun.
Take time out for your family and friends: Life is not all work. As Dalai Lama put it, “The goal of life is not to achieve sales target, it is to be happy.” To live your life to the fullest, you should be able to balance between work and your family. You should know when to stop your activities and start fulfilling your responsibilities at home. Spend time with your wife, go out for a candle-lit dinner with her and watch her eyes gleaming with pleasure for you, it will bring an unique satisfaction in your life that you won’t experience elsewhere. Play with your children or go out with them for a walk, learn to give your ears to what they have to say. Hear them before you go on preaching anything to them. Don’t preach them, but advice them on matters like a friend. They would be happy to know that their greatest friend on whom they can rely on are at their home. As you see your wife and children grow with you, you will find joy, satisfaction and fulfillment in your life. Take time out for your friends; go out with them to the Cafeteria and break bread with them. These varied activities will bring variety and fun in your life. Variety is the spice of life they say and it is so true.

Invest in your health and looks: To experience your life to the fullest, you should also be in the pink of your health. You should be pain and disease free. There goes a saying that many people first spend their time in earning money and then spend their money in earning back their lost health. Don’t be one them. Be wise, if you care for your health and looks now, they would do good for you to keep you healthy, active and alive for a long run. Your physique is like the goose that gives you the golden eggs, you got to feed and exercise the goose properly to keep you giving the golden eggs. If you neglect the goose or try to suck all life out of it to achieve voraciously what you desire, your health would break down and the golden eggs would stop coming. Drink plenty of water; take a good intake of vegetables balanced with your non-veg diet. Hit the gym if you can or even walking everyday or jogging or for that matter swimming, cycling, stretching just for 20 minutes a day would do wonders for your health. When your body is healthy, and energy flows out of you, you will be more active, feel alive and joyful.
Take time to smell the flowers and help others to smell them too: Finally, don’t forget to smell the flowers by the wayside as you trudge on the path to achieve your dreams. Take a moment out, watch the rainbow and cherish its beauty in your heart, give time to hum your favorite tune, have some time to play your favorite game of squash, go out on an excursion for sight-seeing. The bottom line is rejuvenating yourself by filling your life with work, duties, fun and relaxation. Believe me, you will get up from your bed with a fire in your belly and end your day with a prayer of gratitude. Don’t forget there are people around you who have forgotten to do this, help them to see the beauty this world has to offer, motivate and coach them in living the success principles, invest your time and money to help and uplift those in need. Contribute and give back to the people around you, it is your duty to do so for you wouldn’t have been without them. When you do this and find that one soul was able to breathe better because of you, you will have the joy of living your life to the fullest.
Conclusion: Friends, the universe, the creation of God, is in abundance and it wants you to live in abundance. The secret to abundant life is recognizing this fact and taking the above steps to experience life at its best and fullest. Raise a toast to your dream and your life. May you have life in your years as you go along the path of life.
Joy be all yours
Sohan.