Bucket List

What's on your Bucket List?

Roots to Breath, Dona Anderson 

Years ago I went on a workshop about reducing stress and instructor spoke about each of us having a bucket that was normally about 2/3 full of daily home and work stresses, financial worries, activities, family, to do’s etc. He said this was our normal, and occasionally extra things would come along that would fill up our bucket a bit more but would go away in a day or two.   

But sometimes if the bucket was already full or near full and something else happened, or some kind of significant event, it would overflow.  These would be the times when we were too overwhelmed and under too much stress. It was interesting how if the bucket was already full, it only needed one small thing to make it overflow, and then what happens when there are those huge things that just get dumped on us in an instant!

Years later the movie The Bucket List, came out it gave a much different version of what the bucket could hold, it had another role.  I have heard a lot of people talk about their “Bucket List” and I’m always curious what mine would hold, nothing extreme that’s for sure.

As far as travelling goes, I have been lucky to have travelled in Europe, Britain, Canada, and most of the US, and I remember saying to my husband years ago when Pavarotti came to do a concert in Edmonton, that when we get to the home maybe this concert will be what we are remembering.  I don’t know what I will be doing next year or in my later years, but I do feel our most important goal is to try to be happy each day now, keep learning, do something you love, enjoy some personal self care time, and to be contributing in some way for as long as we can.

Yes, I do want to travel to a couple new places, but travelling can be very stressful and sometimes hasn’t exactly been what I had imagined or expected, and other times it was more.  So how do you decide what all to put on your list?  Lately, the more I stay home and venture out into my community, the more it fulfills me through the people I meet and the experiences I encounter.  Joining a weekly guitar group has set me up for years to come, and introduced me to a new friend who wants me to jam with her so we can learn together. 

A recent seniors bus trip to Vancouver to see Les Miserables was a full fun day of enjoying the wonderful show, meeting other people from where I live, finding out what they do, enjoy, and to see how friends of friends can very quickly start to build a connected group. Even if it was only for one day, it allowed me to see the possibility of opportunities that exist if you’re willing to open up and take a chance, get out of the house, let yourself be seen, or make a commitment.

Dona Anderson

A bucket list will be very different and personal for each of us if it is our last list of things we want to do before we die.  While I do think it is great to think about what is really important or satisfying to us, I think the list should also be an ongoing list that helps us to live and enjoy each day now.  I don’t want mine to only be about wishes, dreams, and things I haven’t done yet and maybe never will. I want it to also include real things that I should be doing right now, like enjoying myself, who I am and what I have. I want it to list things like meeting a neighbor and perhaps making a new friend, or it can tell me to take a community course to see who I meet and what I learn. 

Perhaps it will tell me to say yes a few more times to see what happens, use my library card, use the good dishes, or its OK to spoil myself or others occasionally. It can also tell me go places by myself to find out what I like, or to take a drive outside of town to find out what is there or to check out a new restaurant so I can talk about it, and it could tell me to learn or do something I don’t like yet. 

There are all kinds of lists and bucket lists, and I want my happiness to come from the things I’m already doing in my life each day that are exciting, rewarding, nurturing, challenging, fulfilling -

All things I can do now! 

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