{"id":2972,"date":"2011-09-16T11:14:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/?p=2972"},"modified":"2011-09-16T11:14:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:14:56","slug":"on-living-to-the-fullest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/2011\/09\/16\/on-living-to-the-fullest\/","title":{"rendered":"On living&#8230; to the fullest!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, it takes a death of a friend &#8212; succumbing to pancreatic cancer &#8212; to be reminded that one should live life to the fullest, and with purpose!<\/p>\n<p>On what would be Herman&#8217;s 40th Birthday, 6 months and 15 days after his passing, I can&#8217;t help but ponder what I&#8217;ve done to ring true to the\u00a0<em>promise<\/em>\u00a0I made to myself after his burial: live as if it were your last day! \ud83d\ude42 So I&#8217;ve gone back to church (volunteering to sing with the Choir, even &#8212; it&#8217;s a great sense of community worship), made more of an effort to attend friends&#8217; birthday parties (since each new year you are living <em>is<\/em>\u00a0something to celebrate!), tried to spend more time with friends and family (like, two weekends ago when I finally went riding with my other bro after several invites from him), and being more charitable, whether it&#8217;s raising money for the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research under Team Herman, supporting other charity work, pro-bono clients, helping my 80-something-year old\u00a0neighbour\u00a0get on Facebook so she can communicate with her great grandchildren&#8230; ^_^<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s cheesy but I&#8217;m trying to get the most out of my time here on earth before I beam up to the mothership, the JSS Heaven. Muahaha. But seriously, I know I still have a lot to work on &#8212; like eating smarter, training for races consistently, less-OCB, become a truly forgiving person, less vain (too late xD), less-road rage (Oops!), and other stuff that pisses me off &#8212; but short of turning into the Buddha or Saint Raciel of Old Torrance, I&#8217;ll just accept what I have and continue appreciating even the smallest things in life&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Herman truly celebrated life, loved his family and friends, and made the most out of silly situations:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2980\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-content\/2011\/09\/NYE-with-herman.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2980\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2980\" title=\"New Year's Eve with Herman\" src=\"http:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-content\/2011\/09\/NYE-with-herman-360x240.jpg\" alt=\"New Year's Eve with Herman\" width=\"360\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-content\/2011\/09\/NYE-with-herman-360x240.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-content\/2011\/09\/NYE-with-herman-226x150.jpg 226w, https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-content\/2011\/09\/NYE-with-herman.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2980\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NYE with Herman<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Happy birfday, big brother! &lt;3\u00a0<em>I will see you again&#8230; but not yet&#8230; Not yet!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>p.s.,<br \/>\nI hope you can forgive me for sharing some these shameless plugs of the causes I support:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Team Herman 2012 <\/strong>(Participant)<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>Running the LA Marathon (again) whilst raising funds for the Hirshberg Foundation<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><a title=\"http:\/\/www.crowdrise.com\/teamherman2012\" href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdrise.com\/teamherman2012\">http:\/\/www.crowdrise.com\/teamherman2012<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;From My Mothers&#8217; Womb&#8221; <\/strong>(Backer)<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>A look into the homeless on LA&#8217;s Skid Row<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/grahamjohnbell\/from-my-mothers-womb-photography-expose-skid-row\">http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/grahamjohnbell\/from-my-mothers-womb-photography-expose-skid-row<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Snapshots <\/strong>(Webmaster)<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>Theatrical benefit to raise funds for a friend&#8217;s 3-Day for the Cure team<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><a title=\"http:\/\/www.snapshotsbenefit.com\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.snapshotsbenefit.com\/\">http:\/\/www.snapshotsbenefit.com<\/a>\/<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, it takes a death of a friend &#8212; succumbing to pancreatic cancer &#8212; to be reminded that one should live life to the fullest, and with purpose!<br \/>\nOn what would be Herman&#8217;s 40th Birthday, 6 months and 15 days after his passing, I can&#8217;t help but ponder what I&#8217;ve done to ring true to the\u00a0promise\u00a0I  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/2011\/09\/16\/on-living-to-the-fullest\/\"> read more <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[390,328,329,391,389],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2972"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3003,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions\/3003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}