Wish you had done more in your life?
A ‘Bucket List’ is traditionally a list of the things you most want to achieve before you ‘kick the bucket’.
Whether you have a long or short time to live, and whether or not you know when the end will come, it can be fun to set out what you would most like to do:
Write a book?
Join a Choir?
Visit the Taj Mahal?
Hold a tarantula?
Sleep beneath the stars?
Ride a camel?
Learn to play Bridge?
Make amends after a long feud?
… many of our wishes may seem unattainable, but just writing them down can be fun and may inspire you to work out whether one or two may in fact be possible.
Search engine Ask Jeeves produced a “Great British Bucket List” in April 2014, after asking 1,000 Britons what they would most like to do, close to home, before they die. Top of the list was to eat fish and chips on a seaside pier, with other entries in the top 50 including being at Stonehenge on the longest day of the year, and visiting a whisky distillery.
For more ideas, try Helen Fawkes’ Report on her List for Living, or try this online Bucket List site for ideas. As Helen notes, if you are able to achieve any of your goals you will have a great experience, and leave behind good memories for those who shared it with you.
You might also be interested in the answers New Orleans artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang received when she turned a city wall into a giant chalkboard allowing neighbours to fill in the blank “Before I die I want to …”
Perhaps more achievable are the aims set out in American columnist Erma Bombeck’s article in on what she would have done differently had she the chance to live her life again:
There would have been more I love yous … more I’m sorrys … more I’m listenings … but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.
For the full column, see here
Let us know your top ten Bucket List wishes and we’ll feature the best on this page. Free or luxurious, fleeting or enduring, your ideas may prompt you to change your priorities, and at the very least may help your loved ones understand you.