I finally saw that movie "The Bucket List". You know, the movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson about the two guys who are dying and make their list of all the things they want to do before they die. I guess a lot of people found that movie to be inspiring.
Me - I found it to be upsetting. I guess what I found so upsetting is just how damned selfish a bucket list could be. I mean, it's all about you. And what you want. As if there was nobody in the world that cared about you - or that you cared about.
I also didn't like that it was all about "someday." When? Next week? Next month? The ever popular "before I die?" Well who the hell really knows when that's going to be. I mean, the roof could fall in on me right now (really - it's pouring like mad out there and this is a lot like the "house that Jack built") and BAM!, that's it.
And then, what do you leave behind with your bucket list - a list of unfulfilled dreams and your family, shaking their heads at your casket, saying "Gee, if only he had lived longer, he may have actually (fill in your dream here.)"
Of course, the opposite is true too. You could live a long time - in which case you might actually achieve everything on your bucket list. Now what? Start over? Or end it all?
Me - I'm against all of this. Instead I propose a "Today List." Not a "To-Do" List, which usually consists of bullshit chores you have to do - most of which you don't - but rather a "Today" list. All of the things you WILL do today - things like "Today I will kiss my daughter" or "Today I will read that book all afternoon" or "Today I will do nothing at all - and like it."
A Today List of all the things you will do, or are grateful for, or will do for others not for the personal reward but rather for the simple reason that it feels good - or is the right thing to do - or just because.
Rather than a Bucket List item of "Someday Go to Paris" a Today List item of "I will eat at that neat French restaurant on Main Street". A Bucket List is a list of long-range targets - a Today list is right there for the taking. Not someday. Today.
And, if the roof DOES fall in on your head, your family may still be standing there at the side of your casket, shaking their heads and missing you, but at least they won't be lamenting all that you didn't do. That is, unless your Today List said "fix the roof."
