live life to the fullest we need to look beyond the latest television programs, new computer and console games or the newest scandals of celebrities and politicians. Right now these things entertain us, but in we may still feel unsatisfied. An article on Planet of Success, suggests that it takes three steps to live your life to the fullest: take action, take responsibility, and be conscious. Taking action means that you should step forward with courage and follow your heart. Taking responsibility means that you accept the things that you can and can’t change and you decide to either make the best of it, to change it or to start all over again. Being conscious means that you can look back on what you are doing, and know if it makes you happy and challenges you.
Here are three people who we think are living their lives to the fullest, challenging themselves to be active, responsible, and conscious. At the same time, each of them have put that into perspective searching for ways to help others while achieving their dreams.
Mark Zuckerberg
Ideas are useless if you don’t act on them. Mark Zuckerberg saw that: “The desire to stay connected with your friends and family is a relatively universal thing across the world,” and he acted on it. During his sophomore year at Harvard university, he co-founded the social networking site Facebook with his college roommates from Harvard’s dormitory rooms. Mark saw the larger potential of the site and made the courageous decision to leave college and devote himself fulltime to Facebook. It expanded quickly: growing from one million users in 2004, to to 5.5 million in 2005, to one billion in 2012. Facebook is now the world’s largest social network, and is worth billions. In an open letter on Mark’s Facebook page in 2015, he and his wife Priscilla Chan wrote: “We are committed to doing our small part to help create this world for all children. We will give 99% of our Facebook shares — currently about $45 billion — during our lives to join many others in improving this world for the next generation.”
Misty Copeland
“I never thought I could make a career out of something I enjoyed doing something I was passionate about, something that gave me a voice,” says Misty Copeland, who was the second African-American soloist in the respected American Ballet Theatre company by the age of 24. She didn’t begin dancing until she was 13 years old. Her talent and passion were clear and she decided to build a career in ballet. But she was rejected from many dance programs because she was told that she had “the wrong body for ballet”. Her big feet and small but muscular build didn’t fit the traditional ideal. Not to mention that ballet had until then been a profession led by fair skinned dancers. In spite of these barriers, Misty has achieved many of her goals, including becoming a soloist with a ballet company. Misty says of her experiences in overcoming the misbeliefs about the ideal ballet body, “It’s important to show athletic women, and the broader public, that both inner and outer strength is something that should be celebrated.”
Dr Kumaran Rasappan
Singaporean medical doctor Kumaran Rasappan believes that passion is worth the risk: “I think people need to learn to step out of their comfort zone and pursue their passion instead of blindly following the mapped out routes.” He went on his first overseas community involvement trip at the age of 15. He helped paint the Saraswati school and set up a library in the remote and mountainous region of Gorkha, in Nepal. In 2012, at 27, he scaled Mount Everest, and at the same time encouraged the public to donate a total of $30,000 to the Tan Tock Seng Community Charity fund. Kumaran had to take one year off to prepare for and complete the climb, which cost him his hospital residency and delayed his five-year service bond with the Ministry of Health. While he completed his preparation training he and his wife carried out mission work as doctors in nearby villages. Both of them have faced challenges in sustaining their volunteer efforts since then hope to involve other doctors. “We hope they will get inspired … so that we always have people going in,” said Dr Kumaran.
What can you start doing to live life to the fullest?
Sources:
Mark Zuckerberg – http://www.biography.com/people/mark-zuckerberg-507402#going-public
Misty Copeland – http://time.com/3083114/misty-copeland-under-armour-i-will-what-i-want/ http://time.com/3071086/under-armour-commercia-misty-copeland/
Kumaran Rasappan – http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/doc-couple-off-to-nepal-again-to-help-with-healthcare and http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Sports/Story/A1Story20110316-268333.html – sthash.DRASdGP3.dpuf
General – http://www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/2011/live-your-life-to-the-fullest/
