#9 Don’t Call it a Bucket List

During his final term, President Obama once said “After the midterm elections, my advisers asked me, ‘Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?’ And I said, ‘Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’” I absolutely hate the term bucket list.  Maybe it is the faux bravery and folksy-ness of the term or the general flawed idea that you will do it someday in the future before you kick the bucket just like in that horrible movie of the same name where 2 guys wait until they are in a hospital bed to decide to live their dreams or some schlock.  I am really into setting aspirational goals.  I also have a suspicion that creating a list and doing it is likely an exercise in getting what you thought you wanted so that you can now relax with what comes next in life.  And this is not to belittle that process because I believe it to be a noble effort. 

Maybe It’s more about the trip and the Scenery…

A friend of mine once did a road trip with a girl planned around seeing roadside attractions: the world’s largest ball of twine, car henge, largest replica of Vangogh’s Sunflowers, largest walleye, etc.  The destinations were arbitrary but maybe it was about the girl and the trip along the way.  If you can create a list that inspires you and pursue it, then you can enjoy the trip open to what happens along the way. 

Reality Versus Tempting Narrative…

Creating a list also helps you think realistically about what you may actually want to do versus vague notions.  Why Haven’t you done it already? What was holding you back from doing this thing already? For example, “I want to be a monk and achieve enlightenment at a Tibetan monastery” may have been a vague romantic notion that sounded good in a vacuum, but when you think about leaving your life, family, and all of your Western values behind for obscurity and struggle, this may not be something that you actually want.  So in summary, I hate the term but I love having a list as the scenery for your drive.  

How do you make a list? 

You may have it in your head already so just start writing.  Any method that works for you is fine.  I used a method that I found at “Living AFI” Under this method, you think about your past, present, and future self and categories of things that you love as well as people that you want to spend time with in a hub and spoke framework.  I liked this framework because it generates lots of ideas and I think a good list should have at least 100 things on it because 100 is a good score on a test and a good proof whisky. 

My List of Adventures

This is my list in no particular order but don’t cheat and steal my answers before doing the exercise yourself because like your teacher told you, you are only cheating yourself if you look at mine or google a bunch of bucket lists to create your own derivatively right?:

I’ll definitely share some of these adventures as I go and I even created a homepage tab because I am sure it will be hilarious and insightful which ones turn out to be more than I expected and which totally sucked.  If I make it through this whole list, it means that I didn’t grow and change along the way so I sure hope I don’t.  Also, please reach out if you can help with and would like to join me on any of these adventures.  I would love to hear from you.  In addition to being fun, this “living the dream list” helped me develop an initial daily plan when I left my full time job.