How did the whole "bucket list" thing get started anyway. I am a little sick of it. It came up again at a meeting I was at on Friday, and I had to think fast since I don't have one. I came up with something very mundane...travel in Italy.

Do any of you have bucket lists? If so, what's in them? Are you as jaded as I am about them, or do you like them?

I do not have list of things I want to do before I die. I do, however, have a long list of things I plan to do after I die.

What's a bucket list?

This is it

While most bucket lists are pretty mundane, there are of course the individual whose list includes shooting up Batman films.

Where's the joy in "preparing to die"?

I have had the enormous luck to tour with my favourite musicians and met in person with two of my "heroes" ... so nothing much left to do, really ...

Bea

quote:

Originally posted by Bea:


I have had the enormous luck to tour with my favourite musicians and met in person with two of my "heroes" ... so nothing much left to do, really ...

Bea

So that explains hanging out here? I'm happy to see you doing it, whatever the motivation.

In my own case, I consulted with a financial planner today and learned that I can't afford to die - I'm too poor to afford a bucket to kick.

Jst returned from a 'vacation' wherein my sis & I made my 84-y.o. Mom's 'bucket list'-- one more trip to Cape Cod-- happen, complete w/ [her] new pacemaker battery, walker etc. It was a challenge! She returned home reinforced w/plans for next yr, & we, armed w/real experience, ready to try it again in '13...

Everyone here's bucket is in Nantucket.

quote:

Originally posted by Bea:
Where's the joy in "preparing to die"? Bea

There's no joy in it insofar as the person doing the preparation is concerned. Indeed, such preparations are positively depressing since by making them, one is confronting the certainty of one's own mortality. And no matter how much our minds accept this fact, our hearts don't want to.

But, speaking as one who has had to deal with several bereavements recently, I can assure you all that it is a great relief to those left behind when the deceased's wishes and preparations are clear and made in good time.

In the UK at least, dying intestate makes it much easier for the Chancellor to get his hands on any money deceased might have left, and much harder for those who should, by right, inherit.

I have seen many younger people being interested in bucket lists than older people, which I think is funny.

Bethree, what a good daughter you are!

For me, the idea of a bucket list is more of an affirmation that I am not yet dead than a morbid preparation for my demise. In other words, this kind of list, goals, if you will, of things that I'd like to accomplish in my life - it's an exciting and thrilling thing sometimes.

For instance, I wish to travel the world someday. Just saying "someday" is never going to help me accomplish the goal, but placing a more specific goal ("I want to see London") on a list and then thinking seriously about making that goal happen makes it much more likely that I'll reach the goal.

A bucket list, then, is really just a different way of saying that I'm not giving up! Just because I'm divorced, my child is nearly grown, I currently have very little expendable money and my health has been poor doesn't mean that I have to give up my goals and stop looking for ways to meet them. You know, those personal goals can often be set aside because we have to deal with everyday life and struggles. A bucket list can give you bigger dreams.

Interesting, CW, because I don't see it that way. I am with you about the "someday I want to..." sort of thing. And that's where I am. Someday I want to have an extended trip to Italy, touring many of their wonderful cities. Will I? I hope so, but maybe not. It gives me a wonderful dream, though.

However, I see bucket lists as more like a check-off list. Walk some trail. Go to the all 50 states. Run a marathon. Etc. But I've found the bucket list people much more focused on planning it and then checking it off. For the dreamers, like me, we try to do it, but we're not devastated if we don't. The bucket list people are pretty darned serious about it, though. I met one who had three things in her list for this summer...and of course they were all attended to.

So, I don't see the bucket list people as dreamers, like you do. I see them as being more anal retentive. However, maybe I just know a lot of obsessive people who also happen to have bucket lists.

Of course, had the audience been right, here is what I should have said was in my bucket list:

To get the word "epicaricacy" into the OED.

Perhaps then John Simpson would feel sorry for me. After all, what's one word?