Stereotypically, people start bucket lists when they discover they are going to die.
And in some ways I suppose they are rather uplifting. A mind-focusing exercise collating all the beautiful, fulfilling things that you really want to experience before your life inevitably ends.
They’re probably all tinged with a bit of sadness of course. Because the catalyst for a Bucket List is normally a diagnosis of a terminal illness or suchlike.
The moment you are told, with absolute clarity, that you are going to die.
My Diagnosis
The moment I was told I was going to die was when I was about 5. It was probably the same for you.
And whilst there are endless reasons stopping a 5 year old from creating a bucket list, these reasons diminish when a person reaches (say) 20.
We’re adults then, right?
And the Bucket List mentality for a 30 year old. Or a 40 year old. Or a 50 year old…
I see absolutely no reason why this process can’t kick in at any of these ages.
I think we toy with such an approach. You know, those people that will start their own business next year. Or leave their partner in the next six months. Or go to the gym properly this month.
Writing the list is the easy bit. Doing it is the biggest – and, believe me, the best step.
Doing what you feel you were born to do is fucking brilliant! The prospect of failing is a nothing once you get started. Those that you feared would see and maybe even define your failure turn to fog. They evaporate. They don’t matter. You left them behind the second you started.
Kickstart
What a shame that we so often need the urgency of some lady or chap sat the other side of a cluttered desk, solemnly stating that the treatment isn’t working to kickstart us.
Kicking the bucket is crap. You die. Game over.
Kickstarting the bucket list is brilliant! And you can start it now.
This second.
Then do the first thing on it.
Today.
Then add to it.
Then add it it again.
Your Diagnosis
So let me break this to you in the way that Amanda Blainey broke it to me and 100 other people at Do Lectures 10 in Wales in 2018.
You are going to die. Death has a 100% success rate. No exceptions. Ever.
If you are looking for a more detailed prognosis from me, I can give it to you now. You will die around 1000 months from the month you were born.
Get the calculator out.
Work out how many months you have left.
List.
And do!
