Bucket List

Have you ever thought what you would like to put on a bucket list? It seems it might be another one of those crazes that people “have to do” at some point. Examine their lives in minutiae and suddenly realise they haven’t been to the Taj Mahal, fought tigers in an Asian jungle or bungee-jumped from the Victoria Falls. Maybe the tattoo of Elvis is a good idea, because then at least you can tell your friends you have done it. (Or should I say social media friends.) And then suddenly the whole affair takes on a more vapid feel.

So why, really, do you want to create a bucket list?

How many items?

I have to confess that even I have read articles asking whether you have achieved 100 “items” on a specific list. For example, have you been on a safari, have you ridden on a motor bike, have you been deep sea diving? Feverishly you tick the boxes and find that perhaps you have done 80 of those items, or perhaps just twenty. It’s funny though, that these lists don’t include experiences such as have you raised a child, have you endured a painful death of a family member, have you bought a house or have you got a university education? Neither will it say have you had chickens or pets, have you created a veggie garden or helped a friend. So you have to question what are the important things in life? Are they these fashionable adrenaline-junkie activities that you “must” achieve before you’re dead? Is there a push away from traditional values and experiences, as they now are just not “cool”? Looking at some of the bucket list items, I think I probably will die trying them!

Half-full or half-empty?

As I scroll down yet another page on the internet of the now 500 things to do before you die, I suddenly realise that perhaps we could inverse the concept and think about all the things we have achieved already. We have managed to get through primary school and secondary school, succeeded in getting a job and have had relationships. We have managed to survive in this sometimes dark and scary world. We managed to make friends and also survived living alone. We have improved ourselves and opened ourselves up to new experiences, connections and relationships. We have experienced death, and life. It surely should be the glass half-full rather than the glass half-empty, shouldn’t it? And yet I know that next year, as I hit the dreaded 5-0, I too will be looking at the bucket list ‘options’ that are talked about across the internet, and tick off the ones that I might want to have a go at. Will I put it on Facebook or Instagram? Yes, probably. Should it matter? Of course not! I think sometimes people just want to feel alive again, to feel like a child and to have the awe of the world at their fingertips. Sometimes it might be just to rediscover their inner child.

Can you stop?

Can it become addictive? There is the draw of adding multiple facets to an already complicated life. The bucket list has the risk of changing each year and growing, either in danger or quantity. When do you stop? When does a bucket list become not a bucket list, but just a list of all the things you never really got around to the first time you were here on the world?

Did you know “bucket list” translates in French to “the list of things to do before you’re dead”? Doesn’t flow off the tongue quite as well. And it is that word or concept “death” that gets us each time. Midlife crisis is the realisation of our own mortality. That we will be a long time dead. So, surely it is reasonable to think about living? But through a bucket list? And yet…

F*** it.

I will have a go at the bucket list next year.

Why not?