Does the man without a bucket list lack dreams?
The thought recently occurred to me as I stared at my plain refrigerator door. While the barren interior of said fridge should undoubtedly have been the bigger issue, my train of thought lingered at the magnet-less and bucket list-less outside.
It's a common expression, bucket list. Probably more so than even the "kick the bucket" phrase that it originates from. Perhaps the decade-old Jack Nicholson movie is to blame for that.
But it's that universality that gets you thinking. For every person that utters the dreaded "It's on my bucket list," do even half of those people have a physical list? And if they do, is anything crossed off?
So begins my crusade against the bucket list.
If you don't have one, that's OK. If you have one that's been neglected, that's OK. And if you have one and feel like crumpling it up and tossing it into that empty garbage can, that's OK. All the better.
The bucket list as we've come to know it is damaging. It's intimidating. It's cold. It's rigid. It removes the pulse, or at least the impulse, of an experience. The bucket list scoffs at the phrase "remember when" a la Tony Soprano. Spontaneity and innovation are tossed aside in the shadow of the bucket list.
For the cleanliness of it all (no doubt attributed to the word "list"), the bucket list can get murky when it comes to the ideas of choice and regret.
If you have a bucket list, maybe it's because you want to expand your horizons, push yourself or simply get outside your comfort zone. With the bucket list, the idea is that you'll remember all the satisfaction and reward of those experiences every time you glance at that piece of notebook paper.
But if the idea is to look on proudly at all those experiences that you chose deliberately and carved out time for, what of the happenings that didn't feel like choices at the time? Or the ones that weren't choices then or now? Can't those be looked back on with pride as well?
The bucket list remains a tricky proposition when looked back on through that lens. If you're at a certain age and holding your own incomplete bucket list, it can be an all-too-convenient reminder of regret. If at that same age you're creating a bucket list, then hey, it's easy to think you probably didn't do enough when you were younger.
While the bucket list can be a cruel thing in the rearview mirror, if you have one, you're obviously looking ahead.
"Goals are just dreams written down." The words sound like the beginning of a motivational speech from a sales coach at a cell phone kiosk at the mall. It's easy to say that a bucket list is one's goals and dreams, but given the sanctity in which we hold those things, aren't goals and dreams much too big for that progressively wrinkled piece of paper? Wouldn't the weight of one's dreams pull a bucket list off a fridge the way things like relationships in Ryan Bingham's backpack in Up in the Airwould undoubtedly cause a strain in a person's shoulders?
From the moment a person pens (or types) their bucket list, they have literally their entire life to accomplish everything on it. The implication created there is that the things that seem important at that moment in time will remain important all through the next five or even 50 years.
Five years seems like a long time into the future, until you look back and remember the year 2011 wasn't that long ago. If everything that mattered to you in 2011 matters as much now, then you're probably the ideal person to have a bucket list.
So no, I don't have a bucket list, and if you have one, then surely you won't be deterred by my stance against it. If you're like me and don't have one, just know that it doesn't mean you also have to be dreamless, goalless and of course, magnet-less.
And if you do have a bucket list, just know that it doesn't mean you're unexciting. You're probably very exciting. Heck, I'm sure you have the itinerary to prove it.