what "living life to the fullest" looks like
the eulogy values i aspire towards, instructions on how to live life, and more
what "living life to the fullest" looks like
the eulogy values i aspire towards, instructions on how to live life, and more
I’ve changed my mind about what a successful person looks like. My v1 framework for a successful person focused on external achievements. Is this person leading a company? Are they operating at the top of their field? Are they leading movements and creating change? Those were the questions that decided whether someone was a success or not. It created a picture of someone well-educated, well-read, and well-traveled, with an aspirational lifestyle.
Though this is a common view of success, I’ve come to appreciate how myopic it is. Today, success looks very different to me. For my v2 definition of success, I think about things like: Do you have a genuine sense of self and purpose? Do you have an openness to evolve? Can you be at peace alone in a quiet room? It’s a broader definition but also a higher bar. I don’t want to judge, but I think it can be tougher to be at peace with yourself than to be hard-charging and get a promotion.
Knowledge of the world isn’t the same as experiencing the world. Why does online connection so often seem to lack aliveness, as compared to encounters with the world of flesh-and-blood people, nature, and material things? This paragraph from Karl Ove Knausgaard struck me as eloquent: “It feels as if the whole world has been transformed into images
... See more“Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.”
― Henry David Thoreau
Let go of the 'shoulds.' Life is full of 'shoulds' - you should go to that event, you should answer that text, you should do the laundry, etc., but at the end of the day, they are 'cans' and you determine if and when you act.