Revise your bucket list

The phrase "kick the bucket" means to die. Derived from it in 2006 "bucket list" entered Webster's dictionary. It means a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying. Usually, this list is generated by retirees or people who have been suddenly diagnosed with some sort of terminal illness allowing them not much of a longer stay on Earth.

There have been no less than two movies, two TV series and three songs about bucket lists. Canadian-Portuguese worldbeat singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado sings her wishful bucket list includes "our first kiss and to make you mine." My anatomist friend Dr. Hur coincides with the most popular among people: to travel, in particular, to visit Iceland to see the Northern Lights (aurora borealis).

Dr. Periyakoil at the Standford University School of Medicine began an online research survey with thousands responding, each with a bucket list of five items of most importance to them. Six common themes were: the desire to travel with 78.5 percent of participants, accomplish personal goals 78.3 percent, achieve specific life milestones 51 percent, spend quality time with friends and family 16.7 percent, achieve financial stability 16.1 percent and do a daring activity with 15 percent. The Stanford Letter Project is ongoing and the new and growing database percentages change a bit, influenced by participants' culture, health, gender, spirituality and age.

In the December 2023/January 2024 issue of the AARP magazine (formerly American Association of Retired Persons), 73-year-old Stephen Randall, after almost kicking the bucket, wrote his anti-bucket list. His commonsense article spurred me to revisit my personal bucket list. I don't live a humdrum life because I can always find something that interests me. But, most certainly, I need not rousing excitement in my last days, nor did I require such exhilaration in youthful days beyond that of a roller coaster ride.

Randall upon recovery traded adventures for ordinary life. His denizen-friends' suggestions: "Do you realize what you'll learn about yourself jumping out of an airplane?" "Swimming with the sharks changed my life," said another. Family, music, walks in the neighborhood, TV … he loves those non-stressful things with nothing to fear. He's not bored! So, he created an anti-bucket list: "Plane travel? It's over. Things that make your back ache? Getting up too early or staying out too late? Why?" So, in alignment with Randall's anti-bucket list, I suppose I have always had an unwritten one. You see, I have no fear but at my age, I've learned to be very cautious because of others' demise as a result of risky or daredevil activities. I like keeping my feet planted on the ground, especially residential ground.

Nevertheless, the written one needs editing, to say the least. What's on it? To visit my childhood home and school in southern Mississippi; to teach English conversation, gratis, at an orphanage; to learn the Korean language; to publish a novel with a measure of success ... my reason to amend my short list is simply due to economics and duration. All three will cost me much money or much time which dwindles day by day. Yet, I continue to dream of possibilities.

I ask, do you have a bucket list? What is on it? My unsolicited advice is "Be safe, don't hurt yourself." I think you can learn much more about your interesting family, friends and colleagues should you know their list. Jane Austen stated, "One half of the world does not understand the pleasures of the other." You may be mildly surprised or perhaps astonished or even flabbergasted by the wants and desires of others before they kick the bucket.

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella “Beyond Harvard” and presently teaches English as a second language.