To Bucket or Not?

My friend Alison and I are fans of "The Amazing Race", and with a new season just starting we were discussing the show the other day. She mentioned that the host, Phil Keoughan, almost died in a freak accident at 19, and since then has been living with a clear intent towards a life of exotic adventures and charitable works.

A bucket list so to speak. You've seen the movie "The Bucket List" with Jack Nickelson and Morgan Freeman, yes? If not, go rent it/Netflix it. Consider it an easy check-off for your list.

Now, I love the idea of lists. I make to do lists, and shopping lists, and don't get me started on my vacation packing lists. Still, I'm ambivalent on the concept of a formal, written-down "these-are-the-things-I-want-to-do-before-I-die" list. It seems worthy, I have friends who have one, and surviving cancer does give you a certain push in that direction, but ...

Do I fill it up with places (Japan, Charleston, and Venice) I'd like to visit, even though I certainly don't need a list to remember my desire to see them?

Can I change it if, say, #12 becomes obsolete? Because had I made a list 20 years ago, going to a Grateful Dead concert would have been on it. Not because I was ever a dead head, but because it seemed like an iconic thing to experience. But now, with Jerry Garcia being gone and all, it's not so much a goal of mine.

Are things that realistically have a slim chance of ever happening, despite my efforts, a waste of space on a bucket list? And wouldn't it just make me feel bad if "Write and publish a best selling memoir" is forever uncrossed and mocking me?

And just how "big" do these items have to be anyway? I mean, there are things I'd like to accomplish sometime in my life, like finding the perfect lipstick, white button-down shirt, and paint color for our bedroom; but I don't know if they merit a spot.

I'm tempted to make a list of fabulous things I can already cross off (any semi-OCD list maker will tell you that's really the best part of list making):

- go snorkeling in Hawaii
- drink a beer with a few (cute) Danish boys in Copenhagen
- have a front row seat for Old Faithful being, well, faithful
- be a blessing to someone recently diagnosed with cancer
- provide Christmas for a family
- cheer a Penn State win at a major bowl game
- hold a tiger cub in Las Vegas
- strut with the Mummers on New Years Day
- celebrate a birthday in a foreign country (twice)
- marry one of the good guys
- help raise an amazing young woman
- bring home our son

But I guess that's not the spirit.

I could read the advice given here on how to create a bucket list, but honestly, I don't think I will.

Perhaps I have no great sense of adventure or perhaps I just know what's important to me (big and small) and I do it. While it's true that going bungee jumping will never be on any list I make, I love my life - where I've been and all the things I'm looking forward to doing.

Maybe the exercise of just thinking about a bucket list is really the important thing for me. It certainly cements in my mind how very blessed I have been by all the wonderful opportunities I've had and the things I've been able to experience and see.

What about you? Have a bucket list? If so, what's number one on the list? Don't have one? That's more than OK with me; how about sharing the best things you've already done?

Bucket list or not, it sure is a beautiful life.