The Bucket List, or Eye of the Tiger

I had a conversation today with a coworker about turning 30, and about people creating bucket lists. I had joked that now that I had left my twenties, I should be making a bucket list, and had even texted a friend earlier this morning about the same thing.  The predictable “travel to a foreign country” and “learn to surf” idioms were swirling through my head.

Contemplation has been the order of the day this birthday. Taking stock of what I am doing in my life, and what I want to do. But my coworker asked me why creating a list was so important? She asked me, “Why are you spending time making lists and dreaming, and not actually living?”

Granted, she doesn’t know me outside of work really. She doesn’t know the many changes and leaps I’ve made over the last year and a half. But what she said struck a chord with me nonetheless. And almost as if fate had intervened, I read today’s gym blog post about living in the moment. And I just had to get on the blog tonight.

How many of you make a list when you know you just have to get something done? The only way you’ll do it is if you make a list and stick to it. And while you’re at it, you might prioritize it. Number one being the most important, or the most time-sensitive. Making a list makes it official. You’re committed.

But what if something happens to change things? What if life happens? One of my best friends was going to fulfill one of her items on her “list,” but life got in the way, and the plans fell through almost at the last minute. I was devastated for her, so I can just imagine how she felt.

What if your situation in life doesn’t allow you to go for that which you have placed at the very top of your list, the number one must-do item? When you have a family of five, with young children and a house payment and a nine-to-five job, it can be difficult if not impossible to go paint the Egyptian pyramids.

Creating a list of all the things I want to do still in my life was originally going to be my way of telling myself that I can make it happen. That if I made this list, it would give me things to work towards. But I am already doing that, every day. Taking stock of what I am already doing tells me that I have nothing to worry about. Living in the moment has some blissful tendencies of making you value what you are doing here and now. And it makes me believe that since I’ve made it this far without a list, I’m pretty darn sure that whatever I do from here on out, I can be proud of it the next time I decide to sit back and take stock.

We all have undulations in the planes of our lives. How you choose to ride them is up to you. Me, I’ve decided I’m gonna ride mine on a longboard big enough for my family and friends, with a barbell in one hand, and a writing utensil in the other. Where I go and where I end up are not written on a list.