What does it mean to live life to the fullest? How does one go about living life to the fullest?
Examples are fine, but don’t in themselves answer the question. I mean, Google Images seems to suggest that to live life to the fullest is to jump up into the sky with all your limbs outstretched. The sun or the ocean have something to do with it. But I think we’re a bit more philosophically inclined here than Google Images is.
If it’s not a bullshit phrase like I think it is, then I guess it would look something like a Coca Cola advert. 
Or, I guess if you lived like an incomprehensible wreck you could be on the right track. 
is this a serious thread???
if it is anon would you tell us what you believe…
By “bullshit phrase”, are you saying the phrase has no meaning for you? Is there no such thing as wasting your time, for instance?
Not sure why you’re asking if this is a serious thread.
I don’t know what I believe, 100%. I have some thoughts on it though. For instance, I think there is something to the Google images. People in those images feel free, not bogged down or imprisoned. They feel expansive. Unburdened.
I think the phrase implies a passion for whatever it is you’re doing. Although, I also think of it as something of call to action. To seek out and embrace new experiences, that sort of thing.
I think it has become a sort of bullshit phrase, notably accompanied by “long walks on the beach” and “cuddling by the fire”. If it means anything, it means very different things to different people. Maybe it’s working hard to attain goals, but those goals may include scoring at the local club, playing tennis regularly and going on fabulous vacations. Nothing wrong with any of those, of course.
That’s my sense of what the phrase conventionally means, too. I suppose I’m taking the view here that living life to the fullest is something like being in good physical health - it’s something we can investigate and analyse. We analyze healthy food into components like proteins, vitamins, etc., so can’t we do the same for something of a psychological nature such as “living life to the fullest”? So…
Would embracing any new experience be an example of living life to the fullest? I’d say yes, though if “embracing” implies obsessively seeking out, then I’m less certain about that. I do think that not carefully avoiding things that are unpleasant is an example of living life to the fullest.
Yes, I think the bullshit comes from mistaking a particular thing for how that thing has functioned for us in the past. That’s how we get clichés. We try to repeat past experiences, rather than remaining open to new experiences.
As you say, there’s nothing wrong with these things. We get bogged down in the details of life, and we take vacations to refresh ourselves.
if you are bored and lonely-----probably not living life to the fullest… if that is a chronic problem…
I agree, boredom and loneliness might be signs of not living life to the fullest. Then again, those are human emotions and it strikes me as possible to fully experience them, without trying to change them into something “better”.
“Living Life to the Fullest” does (should) not mean you must engage in extreme sports or travel the world or obsessively seek out new experiences. There may be nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those things, but they all require a certain materialistic acquisitiveness that does not necessarily correlate with deep, true happiness - or else you might posit that nobody living in primitive cultures (for example in the distant past or in less fortunate regions of the word) is/was truly happy?
Anon, as a Buddhist I think you might relate to the idea that “Living Life to the Fullest” correlates to mindfulness: shutting down the recursive internal dialog as often as possible and “feeling” the “feeling of being alive”, the base subjective experience of human existence. As long as our basic needs (food, shelter, etc) are met, just to exist is exhilarating - if you aren’t getting this out of life it’s not because you lack novelty, it’s because you’ve lost track of what living really means.
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” – Siddhartha Gautama, Indian Hindu Prince and founder of Buddhism. Born 563 B.C. Died 483 B.C.
Thanks Buffalo - yes, mindfulness definitely plays a role for me. But you’ve given me an opportunity to clarify something here. I don’t think employing mindfulness is in itself living life to the fullest. I think there’s more to it than that. I mean, I visited a Zen center once, and witnessed people engaging in “mindful gardening” or something like that. It made me want to run for my life! They looked like robots. They looked miserable! In other words, though I’d encourage anyone to undertake mind training who’s interested (for instance, training to stay in the moment without obsessing over the past or future strikes me as an important step in learning to live life more fully), I’d also encourage anyone who’s undertaking this kind of mind training to remember that paying obsessive attention to something isn’t really mindfulness in the Buddhist sense. Mindfulness is joyful, relaxed, and doesn’t suppress one’s natural spontaneity and inquisitiveness.
Anyway, that was a brief specifically Buddhist take on the subject. I don’t want to restrict the topic though. I like that you touch on extreme sports. I completely agree with you - but on the other hand, damn, they can be fun!
Personally, I think that one of the reasons that sports (extreme or otherwise) are so “fun” is because they force the participant to shut down the normal interior dialog and concentrate on “doing”; sport is very much a form of mindfulness; of connecting with reality. So sports may be one way of “getting there”, but it is not at all the only way, and much of our current culture emphasizes the wrong aspects - it’s like, “How can you say you’ve ever really lived until you’ve base-jumped!” (or some such garbage).
Good point, I agree. But I don’t think it is only a matter of shutting down inner dialogue. I can shut my eyes and squeeze really hard and count to ten over and over again without getting discursive, but I don’t think I’m therefore living life to the fullest. Do you?
No, you make a very valid point. But if you did what you suggest, in a sense you would just be running away from life, not engaging it. I think we need to encorporate mindfulness into everyday living and part of life should entail seeking/finding our own purposes and motivations.
As far as the “mindful gardeners” are concerned, I couldn’t help thinking about how a person from 100 years ago would react to watching somebody today playing a video game (especially if they were observing without seeing what was on the screen).
I think mindfulness is very important. I just think it can be somewhat misunderstood. I don’t think it’s meant to be such a heavy thing as many people make it out to be. I’m making the point that the attitude we bring to mindfulness practice heavily colors the practice itself. I agree with you that living life more fully is about how we approach certain activities, rather than the activities themselves. I think you might have misunderstood me, as I don’t think I’ve suggested running away from life in any way. I’m not saying that a person who goes bungee jumping all the time lives life more fully than someone who works a normal job day in day out.
Yes, very insightful!
I think it probably has to do with not settling. In the “Well, it’s a paycheck I suppose” or the “Well, she’s alright I suppose” kinda way. Realising you are unhappy, or unfulfilled, and then having the guts to do something realistic about it, putting in the work, taking the chance, whatever. Sorting out the real dreams from the idle ones.
You let slip the problem right there: “Sorting out the real dreams…”
Your career ambitions, your love life and much of what we use to “define” our identities in the West is shallow fluff; truly nothing more than “dreams”. You may or may not consider yourself happy; but if you define happiness based on these external factors you are largely at the mercy of serendipity. True happiness needs to be independent of circumstance. At least, that is what the Buddha taught…
[size=85](in my humble interpretation)[/size]
I can’t agree more. And we need to keep a light-hearted attitude about the whole thing. Unfortunately “philosophy” seems to be a very serious and grave endeavour. That’s what I like about Zen - there is this strong irreverent sense of humour that reminds us that none of us have really got it all figured out, perhaps not even the Buddha. And how could we, a tiny insignificant mote of dust within the universe even aspire to pretend to know what that universe really is?
No, I think I see what you are saying, but if I just “shut my eyes and squeeze really hard and count to ten over and over again without getting discursive” I would not really be going with the “spirit” of practice, which should be to learn something about the fabric of reality by observing what goes on within the confines of your own consciousness.