You hear it a lot, in varying forms. "Living their best life" "Making lemonade out of lemons" "Living to the fullest", but what does it actually mean?

I began contemplating this as I was lying in my hammock in my back garden after getting my grades back for my mocks at the end of the first year of college. They were good, subjectively, but to me, they felt like absolute shit. I began to question everything - no matter how hard I try, will I ever be successful?

Then I began to question what 'success' is for me. Is it not letting go of my dream of being a musician, or is it getting into Cambridge, or is it simply one day overcoming my depression and anxiety? Are all of these equal? Would I be filling my life to the fullest if I were to give up on naive dreams and strove to be the best in a traditional field, with a steady wage and security? Would I be filling my life to the fullest if I lost all reserves and went for it with music? Or would I just be living life to the fullest being content with my life? What will make me content?

This kind of ties in with the idea I've had since I was little that I began to question a few years ago. Ever since I was tiny I wanted to be known. For someone to see me and think "Wow, there's that girl! She's so cool!" or "Whoa, her music makes me smile/happy/cry/something". As I got older that morphed into something slightly different. Yes, I would still like to make a career with music, but because I want to help other people that have been in my shoes with my songs and because I feel like disability rights are few and far between, especially in pop culture conscience, and I want to raise awareness, not because I wanted my face on magazine's (although that would be pretty nice, I'm free anytime vogue). I had assumed that everyone wanted to be 'known' like I did, and yeah a lot of people do, but some don't and I guess that surprised me. The more I think about it, however, I start to question if just living a nice life, with nice people, in a nice neighbourhood, with a nice job and two cats would be me living me life to the fullest.

Is there really any one way to 'live your life to the fullest' or is it just about making the best of what you get? I wonder how much of life is pre-determined and how much I determination and hard work. I think it's a mix heavily waited on the determination. You know what they say "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration".

There was a lot of rhetorical questions in this post, sorry about that. I'm just confused at the moment.