Different Perspectives on Living Life to its Fullest & My Personal Commitment for Now & Future

So on the topic that I picked in my yesterday's entry, I received a few different and insightful perspectives, so I would like to share in my entry today.

"For me personally part of the process of living a fulfilling life is taking the time to appreciate everything we are given. We focus a lot of time on reaching for things that we do not have, but I also think we need to realise how much we have already and take the time to appreciate it.

I also think we have to be open minded and able to adapt to new ways
of looking at our own lives. I know I have spoken at length about the need for ever changing perspectives for a healthy balance of mind. ... So, in essence, to me the keys are very basic. Maintaining a humble attitude, keeping an open mind, and being thankfull for the life that we have been given".

"Living Life to the Fullest

If you treasure the beauty
that shows all around you
and try to add some of your own,
Enjoy the companionship
others can give you,
yet value your moments alone…

If you honor opinions
that differ from yours,
yet stand up for what you believe,
Admire the accomplishments
others have made,
and take pride in what you can achieve…

If you love those around you
and love yourself, too,
if your spirit is eager and free…
Then you know what it means
to live life to the fullest
and be the best "you" you can be.

To live one's life to the fullest is to be true and good to the self first of all so that you can then be good and true to others.
How to live life to the fullest?
Never take anything for granted. Savor every bite of a meal, enjoy what you have, and live each day as if it is your first day of your life.
Do not let the child inside you disappear or die. Keep your curiosity alive by being inquisitive and open-minded. No one ever regretted on their death bed what they did; they definitely regretted what they did not do.
Change a little everyday. That way you will never get stuck. See what is happening around you, and rather than feeling threatened or getting suspicious, embrace change. Ask what change you need to make and do it little by little. Whether it means learning how to send text messages from your cell phone or living with gay neighbors, adapt yourself. You will never get old that way".

Thank you for sharing!! It seems as though I have forgotten to keep the importance of accepting changes in one's life in my perspective on this topic. It's so true that the life is consist of constant changes, and sometime brings us happiness but a struggle as well. Many times in my life when I found things very challenging, it was always due to myself facing a change in which I found it difficult to adapt to. But it was when I feel I grew the most (dealing with changes). So I absolutely need to include this perspective in my life!

Also, although I have noted "the appreciation for what is given to us", this is something that we easily take granted for. The food, water, shelter, clothings, great weather, good health, warmth in the house, money to buy us materials, education and experiences, good friends and family. We shall not take the simplicity of life for granted neither. Like my friend said, the key seems like to get back to the basics and appreciate the simplicity of life.

I would like to share my personal experience and raise a question, which I bet not many people have questioned before.

Did you ever realize how we, human tend to take our ability to trust our feelings/thoughts for granted?

Have you ever wondered what it is like to lose such power that we have built from our daily life making small decisions at all times?

Although I have gotten much better with this issue, I once lost this power to a degree that I could not carry on a healthy life style. That was when I realized how much we took this power for granted. As an non-authority figure, I think we tend to think that we have no special power to control things in life. But we in fact do have this power to trust our feelings, make judgment and/or decisions to take actions and adapt to changes, which control our daily life afterall.

Initially, I did not know what put me in such a state of mind, unable to trust my feelings and/or desire to take actions. I did not know what to trust *to live*. But the fact that I was still given this LIFE made me realize that I have much reasons to be bright about my life and be hopeful for my recovery, to gain this power once again.

I then realized it was a sense of great fear and self-betrayal that had put me into such a state. So I consciously started to acknowledge small daily decision-makings and then mentally rewarded myself when I accompolished some actions, as if I have re-gained a new life and everything to be started from the start again. This re-birth was a reason why the immortal bird, phoenix became the theme of my life. To gain an immortal strength from my personal experiences and to grow into a flexible individual that is able to share the passion and love for life with others through sharing. This is partly why a lot of my earrings have the colors from the peacock, which to me is the living existence of the phoenix bird.

Anyway, now, I have gained this power to live fulfilling life, I feel very appreciative for all the support, care and love that I received from many of you, my precious friends in my life. Now that I am having a big change in my life, having this plan to return to N. America in June, I am scared as hell not knowing how I may react to some changes that can not be avoided. Exposing my true honesty, I sometime cried down truly not knowing what to do with regards to this move. But a flashback that set me in the re-birth of my life ironically allows me to become a much humble character. I will never let anyone put me down. This life is GIVEN to me, and I am the author of my own life, and I want to persue the life that reflects much of my identity and personality. So here is my journey to let go of my fear and start taking some actions to get back to the active life style where I can cherish and manifest my life much fulfillingly.

Although this is such a personal entry, I decided to expose and share my personal feelings as a way to make a commitment to myself, to not never look back but to look forward and keep the trust within me and to enjoy the life that is given to me. Thanks for reading. :)

I want to introduce 3 links to my friends's sites today:\

Journey to the West Redux - or - Monkey Does Asia	My Friend, Tatsu's blog. "The ongoing adventures of the Monkey King as he travels through the lands of Asia. After an unexpectedly long stint in Japan (6 years?!), Monkey prepares himself once again to resume the long journey west through the countries of Southeast Asia, India, and ultimately, home.." Quite an interesting read :) He is a very funny guy as well. Check out his site :) and let's hope that his journey will bring him loads of self discoveries, precious experiences and fulfillment into his life :) Ganbatte-ne!
My life in Japan	My new friend, Max's blog. He has a lot of great photos of Japan taken from his non-Japanese perspectives. For those who have never been to Japan, it is a great site to check out what it is like to be here. Check out his photograph that captured a tabloid moment sneakingly taking a photo of a pin...pimp! I wondered if he wasn't scared to take such photo when the yakuza looking guy looked when he snapped the photo though. GOLD!!
The Floating Museum and Archive of Hampton Roads	My new friend, John's impressive website. I was fascinated by his passion to preserve the history of the area where he has spent the last over 20 years in. It is not easy to take actions for the passion that we have. Plus, he shares some quality photos that we do not get to see often. I feel that his site reminds us of some perspectives that we tend to take and easily forget in our lives.

Living Life to its Fullest

Inspired by a topic where I shared my perspective in an email communication with my friend :), I want to blag about different perspectives on "living life to its fullest".

Many people talk about this "living the life to its fullest" in many different occasions I think. "hey, live your life to its fullest! and you are OK" or "hope you are living your life to its fullest". But what kind of perspective/definition is laid behind this message that people use?

My definition of living the life to its fullest:

If one makes the best out of the given situation/time in our day, appreciating what is given to us, I think one is literally living the life to its fullest. BUT, here is the kick. LOL (just sharing my standard that I have put on myself. lol)

To qualify for declaring myself for living the life to its fullest in my
perspective, I want to be spending even a little time expressing my
passion/personality in every day life on top of meeting above mentioned
needs. I do not take my life for granted, and do not even know when I will
die. I am always attracted to those individuals who are able to freely
express themselves through actions, so I want to have the time to manifest
myself, as it is my way to cerebrate my identity (just like the cherry
bloosom trees blooming as if it is cerebrating the life being the cherry
bloosoms..hehe).

Not so long ago, my definition sticked to the quantity of actions that I took to reach out for the set goal that I had. So I was a strict spartan who had to spend certain actions in a given day to declare my life to be lived fulfillingly. But after learning that the beauty of cherishing the given moment and enjoy feeling the peace around me by doing absolutely NOTHING (perhaps chugging on some green tea and eating senbe made it all better too though..hahaha), my definition has changed. Maybe this is the beginning of my lazy arse kumi-journey to the future. :)

What is your take on this? Any perspectives to be shared with me will be greatly appreciated :) PEACE

Today, I drove the car ALL BY MYSELF to the gym for the first time. Yay! I listened to this CD, "Work Out" by Sumo, which was given to me from my friend, Dawn on the way to and from the gym. F*** happy I was. I can not get enough of this freedom that I gained. I freeeeking LOVE IT.

So although I came home to assure my parents that I am a grown-up and able to travel to places all by myself (LOL), I decided to visit two shops for my beginner driver-adventure: for the sake of practicing parking in a different scenarios. LOL But man, was I in at the summit of Mt. Fuji while driving. I can now understand why guys (maybe only in Japan, but) love taking girls for a drive by the lake and shite...lol It's soo much fun :)

Just Hoping for the Best for my Cousin and her family

I have so much in my mind that I do not even know where to start my entry today. One of my relatives had a sudden family emergency lately. It was one peaceful morning on last sunday after a young couple brought their lovely boys to our house for a quick visit. My grandma who was full of smiles seeing the cute boys a moment ago, came to the living room trembling and in a total shock. I tried to calm her down by having her sit down and take a deep breath before telling us what she had to say. She told us a story, which we could not believe immediately. My dad had to call a relative to confirm what exactly happened and received this story that reminded all of us of this incidence that happened over 25 years ago, which separated the live of my beloved little brother and all of us: my cousin's 10 months old baby boy fell off and hit his head badly that he got in a critical status medically. And the baby has clinically became brain dead last nite. But after almost 24 hours later, his heart is still beating, and apparently, he moves his legs when his mom holds his hand.

What sort of mind set do we (I) need to have dealing with this upsetting situation? Can we all have a hope for a miracle to happen so that the brain will revive its life once again? Or is it better to let him go for the family's hopeful future? But if his heart continues beating, what is it that I can do to cheer my cousin?

I have lived my past 24 years having my parents always encouraging me to live a fulfilling life for myself, but also for my beloved little brother, whom we lost due to a sudden accident at our pond when he was over 1 year of age. I was only 3 years old or so when this accident happened. But I vividly remember how much we all loved him. I remember my father choosing him to take a bath with him. Although I was a little jealous, as I never got to spend much time with my busy parents working all the time for the restaurant, I was a very understanding big sister of my little brother, because I also LOVED him very much. I have this single photo of my brother and myself where my brother is checking up on my knee like a doctor while myself laying down and giggling beside him. That is the only photo of him and myself. Even from the photo, I can tell how much we felt blessed to have him in our family. Then one day, a sudden accident happened. I can still recall how devastatingly we all cried with immense sadness. The pain is still there within all of us. And now that I am at a stage of life where it is not strange to be a parent (based on my age though), it puts me in a deep sadness when I imagine how exactly the accident happened over 25 years ago, and how my parents react to such horrible news.

Now that a similar accident, which I desire NO ONE in the whole world to experience is happening to my own cousin, I really do not know what to say to her, and feel very powerless, unable to bring a sense of comfort or hope that she needs. Deep inside, I want to cry out very hard. Cry out for the sadness that my relatives are experiencing. Cry out for the accident that happened to my parents over 25 years ago. and Cry out for all the sadness that we may experience even from now, because of an accidence like this happening in our lives. But here I am emotionally feeling handicapped and unable to let go of my emotions, because I feel that the sadness that my cousin or my parents experienced must be something that is unexplanable to a person who have not become a parent yet. My cousin and her family must be going through the most difficult situation right now. They must be hanging on in this given struggle. I want to hold my tears until I can unite with my cousin, although the meeting with her may not be the most happy consequence to this story. I hope that my cousin and her family will find a way to feel positive about their lives, no matter how difficult this situation must be for them. Ganbatte!!!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

For the mother's day cerebration, I prepared tonite's dinner for my family. Due to a family emergency of my relatives, my grandma had to leave the house this afternoon, so it was only my parents and myself who had the dinner together, but it was a great experience to have the mother's day with my mom here in Japan:)

Everetything turned out great that I was a happy daughter at the end of the nite :) So here, let me show yous how tasty the supper was:

Chive-Three Cheese Spread & Olive with Walnut Spread

Avocado and Mango Salad with Passion Fruit Vinegarette

Marinated Mushroom

Crab Lasagna with Tomato-Basil Coulis

Acidulated Apple Crumble and Vanilla Ice cream

How did you/are you going to cerebrate the mother's day yourself??

Hope it was/will be a great one!!!