My cousin put a bucket list up on her blog. She had some really neat things on it, like hold a grand-baby, have a screened porch, visit Paris in the Spring, see her son living independently, her daughter get married, see the grand canyon, live to see cancer cured. All really good, worthy things, and I hope she gets to experience them all.
This got me started thinking, I should make a bucket list too. So I sat for a few minutes and thought what one thing above all else would I like to experience before I die. I could think of plenty of places it would be nice to visit, but there weren't any that if I don't get to see, I would regret. There are no activities I feel I would have missed out on. Nothing I've done, that I feel a need to ask forgiveness for, or wrong I need to try to set right somehow.
I really have just never had any long term goals, Nothing I couldn't do in a year. I only set short term goals related to my interests. I can be very effective at completing them. My last one was to cyclocross race. I did that two weeks ago, it was fun, I will do it again, more than likely. But I don't have any goal of being a champion, or even being competitive. I raced to race. From start to finish, I did that in almost exactly one month. I didn't think I would, I said I was giving up, but I just went and did it anyway. I'll have to talk about my theories on successfully doing things by quitting some other time.
In the end, I don't know if I could come up with anything for a bucket list.Nothing I feel the need to check off. I might could if someone told me I had a very limited time to live, but that's very different idea to me since the question would not be, "What would you like to do before you die?" but rather "How would you want to spend your last number of days?"
The first question to me is like being overwhelmed by a huge menu at a good restaurant. There are a lot of great choices, so whatever I pick will be OK. This is about items.
The second question frees me to focus on what is most important to me, without having to keep all the stuff from my current life in motion. This is about ideas.
My answer would be to spend some time with my partner and family and let them know how much I love them, spend some time by myself reflecting on my life, do the things I love, (bicycling, working with my hands), and weirdly enough I would spend time volunteering, somewhere I felt I could be of use to someone else, since I am my happiest when I feel useful, and that I am making a positive difference somehow.
