Bucket List

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I’ve been seeing the term “bucket list” a lot lately, the idea being a list of things you want to do before you die (“kick the bucket”). Do you have a list like that? Are there some things that you still want to experience or accomplish?

My own list would read something like this:

(1) Continue doing what I’m doing,
(2) Appreciate what I have as long as I still have it, and
(3) Hope it lasts a good long time.

Andy and I are in our harvest years now. (He’s 78 and I’m 73.) The work of the past year or so has paid off—he’s cheerful and enthusiastic in the morning as he goes up to the mountains. In addition to plowing the road when needed, burning slash and planning his future fruit trees, he’s designing a solar hot water system for the roof so we can eventually have radiant heating in the cottage. He’s already given the preliminary plans to the architect and is starting to order the parts.

And I’m getting back to some projects I was working on before building the house and dealing with insurance receipts—learning to draw and playing with different fonts in designing graphics for my blog posts. I have a rule that I post once a week on each of my two blogs and I always have to include a picture or a graphic related to the topic. I spend a lot more time on those than I do on the words because for me they’re the most important—I’m a visual thinker.

One of the main reasons I started blogging was because I wanted to learn to express myself more in pictures, and the internet was an ideal medium. It’s a soul-satisfying lifelong pursuit.

No, I don’t need any more items on my bucket list. How about you? Is your life soul-satisfying? Do you need to add something?

Thanks to Dixie, Evan, tammy, bikehikebabe and Rummuser for commenting on last week’s post.
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12 Responses to Bucket List

  1. Ursula says:

    Thank you so much, Jean: At last someone has explained to me what the term ‘bucket list’ means. No joke. I kept thinking it was that horror of horrors, according to an old children’s song, loosely translated “There is a hole in the bucket, Karl Otto, there is.” Brilliant. Try and carry water in a bucket with a hole. The song then went on about ten verses about the various and ingenious attempts (stress on ‘attempts”) to repair the damage. I am pretty sure they never quite did.

    Do I have a bucket list? Not really. There are a few things I’d love to experience but NOT in a ‘have to do this, tick off” way. More in that soul satisfying dreamy but not urgent way.

    U

  2. tammy j says:

    like Ursula . . . not in a ‘tick it off the list’ kind of way . . .
    but I have always wanted to stand in the giant redwood forest surrounded by those sacred trees. sacred maybe only to me . . . but I see them almost as a cathedral.
    and I would like to walk on all the streets and see the quaint and beautiful little cottages and gardens of carmel by the sea.
    other than that ~ I am known to be very content!
    it doesn’t take much.
    LOL. underachiever even in bucket lists.

  3. Cathy in NZ says:

    I too don’t have an actual list…

    Some of my friends say that I do – this study lark. But it isn’t…it’s just a way to fill in my days, learn something, keep my brain ticking, be with other people.

    Of course, there are oodles of things I would like to do “again, or new to me” but in some ways I don’t want to…they would probably cramp my life to a point where I would achieve none. Or I would be annoyed because something I love doing, would be put on hold or lost…i.e. my volunteer work that is part-time but sometimes erratic.

  4. tammy j says:

    I too think it will eventually be ‘doctor cathy’! you go girl!

  5. Mike says:

    No bucket list here, either. Sound too much like a glorified to-do list on life for obsessive compulsives. I’m not that organized.

  6. Evan says:

    I don’t think I need to add much. There is lots of stuff that would be fun.

  7. Jean says:

    It sounds as if we all pretty much agree—there are plenty of things to try, experiences to have, but having a To Do List for them defeats the purpose.

    I too, tammy, am an underachiever. My guess is that goes for most of us here—achievement is way overrated! Living fully is not.

  8. Evan says:

    That certainly goes for me.

  9. Rummuser says:

    No, I do not have a bucket list. I am increasingly finding it difficult to find time to do all that I want to do and therefore the nearest thing to a bucket list for me will be to reduce my involvement in some activities to give me time for the ones that I would like to spend time on.

  10. Jean says:

    Rummuser,
    Good luck. My apartment is a bit cluttered at the moment because I make sure my time isn’t. I work on the apartment when I need some thinking time.

  11. Dixie says:

    Australia! My only bucket list item ~ working hard to get there this year. I’ve had the pleasure of being in contact with (apprx) five people who live there. They live within a 50 mile radius of each other and have become close friends. I have never met any one of them, but have maintained contact via internet, phone, and skype for five years!
    New home owner issues, health, blah-blah, has eaten my funds every time. But I will make it… have to; they’re planning a party!!

  12. Jean says:

    Dixie,
    Good luck! Let us know when it happens and how it goes.

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