How to make a REAL bucket list
I read a great article a while ago about bucket lists, how popular they’ve become, and how they don’t really do anymore what they are supposed to do.
If you want to check out the full article you’ll find it here.
But to sum it up for you….the author says that the idea behind a bucket list was of things you’d like to do before you die….but that it has morphed into a list of ‘worthwhile experiences’, often worthwhile in someone else’s opinion. Many of which would be great to do, sure, but that aren’t the things you might regret not doing from your death bed.
He says “The bucket list has mutated into a sort of pre-mortem Fulfilment Catalogue of allegedly worthwhile experiences. It’s been seized on by publishers, who offer us fat books recommending 1001 Records You Must Hear, 1001 Places You Must Visit and 1001 Films You Must Watch before you push up the daisies. I have one here on my desk: 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die (Hang on a minute. If I hold the book in both hands, open it and run my thumb like this…fffllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick… There! Seen ‘em all! Job done!) …
… And some list-makers have decidedly odd notions about the goals that should be chalked up before the Grim Reaper comes a-calling. I particularly liked “Achieve your ideal weight” (how marvellous to lie on your deathbed and think, “Well – at least I’ve got down to 12 stone”) and “Join a social etiquette class and refine your mannerisms” (thank goodness, in your closing hours, you’ll know the correct way to address a duchess, should one walk through your hospital door).
Is this how human beings will quantify the value of their remaining years, by ticking a series of boxes marked Rollerblading, Mastering Basic Inuit, Double-Entry Book-keeping, Visiting Luxembourg, Planting a Tree, Knitting a Scarf, Backpacking in the Rainforest…? I dislike the commodification of experience. It suggests that, whatever random joys you may have had in your life, they don’t really count when set against the universally agreed hierarchy of Things To Do.”
The man has a point.
There may well be a list we have of things we would love to do. But lying on your deathbed will you really be kicking yourself that you never learnt French like you always said you would? Or that you didn’t see the Taj Mahal? I LOVE travel and seeing the world. And there are a thousands places I’d like to go and take my wee girl to. But if I were to be hit by a bus tomorrow and had moment to reflect, the things I might regret not doing wouldn’t be places I hadn’t yet travelled to.
For you it might be. Travel. Education. Or will it be the simpler things that you think back on? Did you enjoy your life? Did you tell the people who matter that you love them? If you take enough time off work to stop and listen to the birds, watch the tide come in, dance like a maniac with kids, laugh with those who matter most to you.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have things you want to do, write them down, and then go out and do them. Of course you should. What I am saying is that it is well worth sitting down sometime (soon) and asking yourself ‘if I died at the end of this year what would I like to have done before then?’.
Making a REAL bucket list
Now here’s the fun bit. Before you do your actual bucket list, write a list of what wonderful stuff you’ve done already in your life. So often there is a focus on what we are going to do that we forget to appreciate what we have already done. (We have the same problem with people we love who have died – we focus on all the tick-worthy things on a list that we perceive they should have done…instead of acknowledging all the wonderful things they did and experienced in the life they actually lived. .)
Remember as you do this, this is not just about learning skills, visiting countries, speaking languages, writing bestseller books. There are also things that don’t show up on bucket lists that are so important in our lives. The friendships you have had. The lessons you have learned. The love you have received and given. The beautiful, tiny moments in life that really matter.
I have seen a whole load of countries and that matters to me, I have learnt languages I love, I have been in love (with wonderful men who I count among my friends now), I have had the most spectacular friendships, I have gotten to enjoy the last almost-7 months with the most ridiculously gorgeous baby (that’s a totally objective opinion of course), I have done stupid things and been able to laugh at myself, and I have touched people’s lives. And before you go thinking you have to make some big plan to ‘touch people’s lives’ you have been doing it every day since you were born. There are people whose lives would not be what they are today if not for you. If I asked everyone to make a list of the people who had most touched their lives….your name would be on some lists.
The point of this is to acknowledge the beauty we have already lived because the reality is that we could die anytime….and it’s great to be happy with where you’ve come from, rather than it be conditional around the stuff you have to do before you can be appreciative for your life.
This is a perfect activity to do to around a death in your life. If you felt that there was so much more that person had left to do (and know that this is your idea of what they had left to do) then take the time to acknowledge what they had already done, experienced, achieved in their life – whatever length it was.
The next bit is to think about, if you were to die say at the end of this year, what would be important to you to have done first?
This is a real bucket list. The things that really matter to you to do before I die.
Kristie
xx
