Nov 6 Should "bucket lists be changed?"

This coming Wednesday,  we will be discussing "bucket lists".

By now, most of us have heard this term made famous by the movie about two people who compiled a list of things they wanted to do before "kicking the bucket" and then go on to do and check the items off that list.

As in most movies, it is a heart warming story of how we should get the most out of our lives before we go.  As we will all have to go some time.

It seems so logical.  We make a shopping list before going to the grocery store so that we won't forget anything before we leave the store.  Make sense that we should make a list of what to do before we check out of this life.

Make the most of the time we have left in this life, maximize our ability to enjoy ourselves while we are here and expose ourselves to as many of the amazing experiences we hear about from others.

So, have you made up your bucket list yet and how many items have you already checked off on your list?

Have you been adding more items on to your list since it was first made up?

It is inevitable with the infinite possibilities out there in this world that we will discover more things we want to do as time goes on.

A list helps us prioritize what we want to do first and that is a good thing. But can we prioritize a list which we know is incomplete and will keep changing?

It also shows us how many more items we want to do versus the time left to do it.

Pressure!  A good motivation to get going but perhaps it also creates feelings of life not quite meeting our expectations?

Will a bucket list lead to rising expectations that is difficult for us to fulfill?

Leading us further away from contentment?

Should we consider additions to the list a real bad idea in this light?

What about the concept of living for the moment, appreciating the here and now.  "To do lists" of any kind is perhaps the worst way in terms of distracting us from being mindful of what is around us.

Then there is the unknowable of how much longer we have to live and what our health will be before the end.  We may have our eye on a particular chair in playing musical chairs but it is pointless if we don't know when the music is going to stop.

The primary objective of compiling a list is to be efficient in completing the items on the list.

We hope to gain a sense of achievement in knowing that we have done the most that we can do and we have done the ones that we want to do most.

Can this sense of achievement be accomplished by a list that is likely to keep changing? 

Are we more likely to feel discontented about the things we have not done rather than the ones we have already completed?

Do we need a bucket list to haunt us at our death bed?

Is the quality of the experience more important than the quantity of the types of experience we have had?

I met someone who told me that he had the experience of eating various insects in China.  These are considered delicacies and also a dare. Naturally I asked him what the various exotic insects tasted like.  He said he was too preoccupied with the idea of having to swallow insects that he didn't recall what it tasted like.  But he did check the item off his bucket list.

So, should we make up bucket list for ourselves and should we change it from time to time?