My 'Bucket-List of Travel.' - New Orleans - Eugene, OR (Must visit Autzen Field before I die). - Boston - Memphis - Austin, TX - Cancuun (again) - New York (again) - Dublin - Vienna - Rome - Denver, CO - St. Johns, Newfoundland - Montreal - London (again) My non-travel list: - Get married. (I've found the girl, just haven't popped the question yet). - Call a championship victory with a Junior Hockey Team. - Watch an MLB game in all 30 ball-parks (so far I've been to three). - Get my weight down to 200 pounds. (I'm 15 away). - Run 10 K (I've done seven). - Buy a House. - Get a hole-in-one on a golf course (Closest I've come was two-feet, and i missed the putt). - Buy a sea-doo. - Buy a $1000 suit. - Act in another play. - See Tim McGraw perform (had tickets twice, couldn't go either time). - See Don Rickles perform (Had the chance in Vegas, passed it up. A big-time regret).
So, I'm interested in this. I've talked to a lot of people that don't have any kind of a list, even just a theoretical one in their head (I, uh, actually have an electronic list that I add to as I think of things). Have you just never considered it before? Or is it a matter of being content with where you are in life right now? Most of the people I've spoken to who have no idea what they'd like to do are utterly unmotivated with dead end jobs and no achievements to speak of... which is obviously not the case here. Same question to anyone else who doesn't have a list... is it a lack of thinking about it, or a lack of desire?
I don't really have a list. There's plenty of things I want to do. In a way it seems similar to how people draw up lists of qualities they want in their dream man or woman. You can spend as long as you want thinking up all sorts of wonderful qualities in a mate that you really would like and what the hell are you going to do when you actually do meet someone who you'd like to marry and they don't fit those criteria? Well, you're going to ignore those things. And then when you tell people about this set of criteria and how he didn't measure up, you're going to look like a god damned idiot because you had such stupid things as "He has to be some sort of health care professional" as a criteria in what sort of husband you want. Or in the opposite case, you're going to be 20 years old, getting married, and using "Well, he fit every quality on the list I made when I was 16" as a reason to be getting married. And yes, I have met these people. While hiking in Germany, I happened upon this view. A middle-aged American tourist walking behind me with his friends said, "You know, I never really had a bucket list, but if I did, this would have been on it." Even with the lousy weather it's a rather nice view. His attitude is exactly on point. The other day while at work, I was pulled aside and asked without any warning if I wanted to see a c-section. "This is going on right now, so you need to make a decision." So I went. If I had known in advance, I probably would have put that on my bucket list. Seeing a mother and father see their child for the first time is pretty special. Having now done that, I am not more at peace with death and my life is not more complete. But I had the experience for the same reason I saw this view: I went ahead with an uncertain situation instead of playing it safe and staying comfortable.
So, you have a list. It doesn't have to be written down or iron clad or all-inclusive. Why would a list of things you want to do be exclusionary to other experiences? This seems absurd. I am going to go way out on a limb here and say that the people posting experiences they'd like to have are not sitting at home on their sofa, ignoring everything else that comes along. edit: maybe the idea of a "list" implies something weighty and heavily considered. It doesn't have to be - it just has to be something you want to do sometime before the maggots start invading your coffin.
I really don't have a bucket list, per se. Sure, there are places I'd like to see before I take the dirt nap (I'd really like to spend some time in the far east), but I don't feel like my life won't be complete if I don't make it. I'm happy living one day at a time. I'm enjoying my time in grad school, the projects I'm doing for work at the university, and I'm looking forward to a new career after I get my master's in 2012. Though, I'd really like the opportunity to punch Regis Philbin in the mouth.
Similar to this, I tend to have a small list of "things I'm working on now" for the relative short term (next few years kind of thing), rather than a long term bucket list. When I finish one of those short term things, I then figure out at that point what I want to do next. There have been a few bucket list items I've had, but I've already crossed them off.
Well, yes and no. I have things I want to do in the since that I'm not idle and content with being on the internet all day, but they are things to do in more of the sense that nettdata used them, that is, things to do within the next few years. For example, I would like to go skiing in France or Switzerland because I am now relatively functional in French. Maybe I've slightly misunderstood why people put things on their bucket list, but going to France is just something to do. My real bucket list, if you'd like to call it that, are going to be those things you find out that you'd wished had been on your bucket list. Of the relatively few experiences I have to draw on, the things that I'm most proud of, and most glad I did, and which have enabled me to go on and do other things like hiking alone in the wilderness of a foreign country, aren't going to be anywhere near most people's idea of "things to do before you die". In fact, they weren't really on mine beforehand. The idea isn't that a list has to be exclusionary to other experiences, but that it's those other experiences which really do make up those things that you look back on and remember, and those things aren't going to be predictable. Also, you missed the point of what I'm getting at. When people draw up that list of what they want in a mate, they'll be more than happy to ignore it when they find someone who they want to marry but didn't quite fit their preconceived notions of what their mate would be, so by no means am I saying the list should be exclusionary. But then, when those women have told me about how their mr. perfect fits or doesn't fit the list, it's usually "He fits everything I wanted except..." and it doesn't matter what that "except" is, because they ignore it in favour of someone they're happy with. Sure, have a general list: he has to be funny, he has to be okay with this kind of lifestyle, he has to be able to travel with me, he ought to be good in bed. Things that set you up for the long term. But as with the example before - "he has to be a doctor, dentist or pharmacist" - it says something suspicious about the psychology of the person making the list. When I was in Munich, I saw all of the fancy cathedrals and drank a lot of great beer, and so forth. The fun part was the people who I met on the way who I drank the beer and saw the sights with. Lots of people will put "See [monument]" on their bucket list. Few will put "When I arrive in a new hostel in [city] and say hi to people, when they ask if I want to go drinking with them, say yes." If you ask me, that's the spirit of what the list should consist of, but it's just not pithy enough for a list.
My Bucket List: See the Habs play at the Bell Centre Visit all 50 states, ten provinces, and 3 territories of Canada Travel to every continent Go to a Super Bowl Watch a basketball game in Cameron Indoor Stadium Get my pilots license Go winter camping in the Wyoming wilderness Shoot even par on a golf course Own a house in which I will build a cigar room Get married and have kids Restore a muscle car Complete a tantrum on a wakeboard Go to a rugby world cup
I'm a big list-maker. Short-term, mid-term and long-term goals are all on it and depending how far out the goal is I have anywhere from a rough to a very specific idea of how and when I'll go about achieving it. Presently, most are financial and materialistic, but that's probably indicitive of the phase I'm in in my life. Things I Have Already Crossed Off - live in Australia - live in Asia (Indonesia, specifically) - live in Africa (Uganda) - see the pyramids (phew. Glad I got THAT one crossed off. It'd be a bitch to try and do now.) - see the Louvre - see St. Peter's Basilica (and climb to the top of it), the Sistine Chapel and the canals of Venice - get a degree - rescue puppies. Two so far. Stuff Yet To Do - finish my master's - take a PhD - travel through South America, specifically Chile and Peru - fall in love - get married (it probably says something about me that I think this and the previous point are the least likely to happen) - have children - retire wealthy Nothing Earth-shattering. It helps to know where you want to go and what you want to be, though.
Still working on completing a full bucket list, but after watching the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre this weekend, I would love to travel to Kingsland, TX some day and visit the house where it was filmed. It's been renovated into a restaurant after being re-assembled and restored over the years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Chainsaw_House
Read every book on my Want to Read list, watch every movie on my Want to See list, learn to Jam Skate, and go scuba diving.
Don't usually post much here, but this topic caught my eye, so here goes: - Become fluent in Spanish. (getting there slowly) - Learn both Arabic and Chinese. (Maybe i'm being over-ambitious here. But hey, thats what a bucket list is for) - Travel/work in South America. (should be happening next year - will hopefully be living in Argentina for 10 months) - Travel/work in Asia. (Intend to get a TEFL cert. after uni so as to be able to teach English there) - Travel/work in the Middle East. (Judging by everything going on at the moment over there, this may not happen anytime soon.) - Go mountain climbing. (Need to overcome my dislike for heights first, but I'm determined to do it) - Fight in an amateur boxing match. (Nowhere near good enough yet. Working on it.) - Go hunting. (As I live in the Uk at the moment, this is quite difficult) - Learn to Scuba dive. - Learn to ski. - Hike through the Amazon (With any luck will be doing this next year whilst in South America) - See the pyramids. - Skydive. (this one scares the shit outta me, but I still want to do it at some point) - Drive a tank (Fuck it, why the hell not?)
You folks are ambitious. I've got two: -two chicks at one time (without paying for it) -get a hug from a live bear (without being eaten) Like this (without making the weird mountain man o-face) Spoiler Alt-focus-ish I see a lot of people listing scuba diving. Learning to scuba dive is easy and not all that expensive. You've probably got a dive shop in your city that offers training and there may be a scuba club so you can meet some divers who will have lots of advice for a beginner. Most clubs plan trips to local dive spots so you can see some stuff without traveling halfway around the world (which is also fun). If you're in college, there may be a diving club at your school that can get discounts for training. (why did I use so many parentheses in this post)
Some are already on their way to happening, some potentially could happen, but none of this is out of the possibility realistically or financially: - See a live European soccer game - Have a son - Cruise to Antarctica - Get robbed/held hostage (this is a completely fucked mindset, but out of morbid curiosity, I want to see how I'd react) - Learn to weld (have the equipment, just not the time) - Get my law degree - Own a plane - Pilot's license - Go on a multi-day backpacking hunt; I don't care if I bag anything - Fly fish for salmon in Alaska - Scuba certified - Publish a book - Concealed carry license - Make national news in a good way - Make over $100k a year - Have over $100k in my bank account - Stay in a Vegas Suit - Race a car on a track - NASCAR infield in an RV - Watch Daytona and Talledega live - New Orleans; I want to see what Katrina did - Visit the Copiapo mine in Chile - Visit Egypt and Tahrir Square, post-protests/revolution