I watched the president’s Correspondence Dinner speech last night and my favorite part started with this:
I am determined to make the most of every moment I have left. After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me ”Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?” And I said, ”Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.”
Afterwards, for the first time in my life, I started to think about Bucket Lists and whether I had one . . . . . . . . . . (long pause) . . . . . . ?
Apparently not.
Seriously. I couldn’t think of a single thing I desperately wanted to do before I die. That seemed a little sad, so I started googling for ideas. I found the website bucketlist.org and started going through the most popular wishes:
Visit Rome. Been there.
Ride a Cable Car in San Francisco. Done that.
Swim with sharks. No way.
Visit a castle. Done that.
Run a marathon. Not in a million years.
Visit Paris. Been there.
Learn to cook. No interest.
Go to Africa. Been there.
Witness a solar eclipse. Done that . . . and so on and so on.
What I can imagine in my future is living where I am living now basically forever. Working where I work until I retire. Sharing my life with my husband, talking to my daughters and walking my dogs daily. What does this say about me - that I have no goals? You always hear: You have to have goals in life!! Then again, the same people who say this, turn around and say you should live in the moment, be in the here and now and really enjoy it – and not obsess about all the cool things you could be doing somewhere else.
So, . . . bucket.
Things are going to happen and changes will come whether I like it or not. A lot of it will be good. When it is not, I can either live in dissatisfaction and disappointment or I can accept it, make the best of it, go on. Some roads will not be taken and some things will never get done. The ironing, for instance. Cest la vie.
Circumstance’s Bucket List
#1 Keep living the way I am living until I’m no longer living.
#2 See what happens.
Trek* 