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Dear Reader,
In the 2007 film “The Bucket List,” Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two men sharing a hospital room who have little in common, except for their terminal illnesses.
With only months to live, they hit the road with a wish list of things to do before they “kick the bucket.”
In Hollywood, of course, that means racecar driving, skydiving, climbing the pyramids, and motorcycling the Great Wall of China.
Some items on their lists, however, are not easily achieved, rekindling a lackluster marriage, reconciling with an estranged daughter, and so on.
The film was only a mixed success given the star power of the two leading actors. But it did spark a lot of conversation…
Smithsonian magazine featured “28 Places to See Before You Die.” John Izzo wrote “The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die.” Other books offer the 1,000 foods you must taste, the 1,000 recordings you must hear, and the 1,000 paintings you must see before you die.
(Sounds like a lot of pressure.)
The idea of creating and managing a bucket list quickly caught on. According to The New York Times, over the past three years more than 1.2 million people have posted their personal lists on the website 43Things.com.
Some folks have exotic aspirations: wing-walking, running with the bulls in Pamplona, experiencing weightlessness, visiting Easter Island or riding the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
Others are more down-home: start a garden, enter a marathon, see the Aurora Borealis, write an autobiography, ride in a hot air balloon, give an anonymous $1,000 to charity.
Still others are a little more “out there”: Search for extraterrestrials. Inhale helium and sing. Join the 300 Club at the South Pole. (That one entails taking a sauna to 200 degrees and then running naked to the pole in minus 100-degree weather.)
Many people enjoy swapping bucket list recommendations…
For instance, you haven’t really lived, in my opinion, if you haven’t peered over the rim of the Grand Canyon, read “The Code of the Woosters,” enjoyed a candlelight dinner to the sound of “John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman,” or visited the north point of Anna Maria Island to watch the sun set.
Of course, the reason for a bucket list is to get away from what someone else wants and finally do what you want.
What’s the process? According to my research - which includes nearly twenty minutes of digging around online - here’s the best way to create and manage your bucket list:
- Make your goals realistic and achievable.
- Put your list in writing and review it regularly.
- Don’t be reluctant to change or modify it.
- Planning is not optional. After making your list, decide exactly how and when you intend to get there.
- Cross off each item as you achieve it.
- If you live long enough, repeat.
Some may feel a list like this is self-indulgent. After all, folks are busy. They have commitments and responsibilities. Where is the time for a cooking class, blue marlin fishing or a reef dive?
Ironically, these are the people who would benefit the most from this exercise.
Are we really too guilt-ridden or tied to the grindstone to live life on our own terms? Will we delude ourselves that we will get around to doing the things we really want “eventually”?
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”
We all have obligations, true. But life can’t just be about pleasing your parents, your boss, your spouse, and your children. It has to be about more than meeting your quota, making the mortgage, picking up the kids and socking something away for a rainy day.
For too many of us, there is a gap between how we spend our time and what is really important.
If you have a friend or partner who shares your dreams, that’s great. But sometimes it takes courage to do what you want. Other people have a lot of plans for you. They want you to go on “their trip.”
Mythologist Joseph Campbell described this as a slave morality, a path to disintegration of both body and spirit. “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,” he said, “so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Some people miss this entirely. They’re too busy making a living to make a life. Others understand it perfectly. Oscar Wilde said, “I’ve put my genius into my life; I’ve only put my talent into my work.”
A bucket list requires you to confront your mortality and recognize that you have only so much time to do whatever it is you really want. It makes you stop and enumerate those things. It encourages you to plan for them. And it motivates you.
As management consultant Brian Tracy writes, “When you have clear, exciting goals and ideals, you will feel happier about yourself and your world. You will be more positive and optimistic. You will be more cheerful and enthusiastic. You will feel internally motivated to get up and get going every morning because every step you are taking will be moving you in the direction of something that is important to you.”
After all, it’s not how fast you’re moving, it’s where you’re headed. A meaningful life is not about speed and efficiency. It is more a matter of what you do and why you do it.
Some individuals aren’t comfortable branching out, experimenting with their lives. But by avoiding risk, they risk something even greater: an unlived life.
Survey the residents at your local nursing home, for example, and they will tell you their greatest regrets are not the things they did or the mistakes they made, but rather the things they didn’t do, the risks they didn’t take.
As the German poet Christian Furchtegott Gellert advised, “Live as you will have wished to have lived when you are dying.”
A bucket list is a step in that direction. It may sound frivolous to some. But is it such a bad idea to jot down what you really want to do before you ditch this mortal coil?
We enjoy so many freedoms in the West. Freedom from regret, however, is up to you.
Carpe Diem,
Alex
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