Might be time to kick the bucket list
LET’S face it – the bucket lists of many Australians are in a state of prolonged crisis.
Border closures and lockdowns along with periods of self-isolation and quarantine have left most people unable to cross anything off their bucket lists over the past 18 months.
It has also prompted many of us to reconsider the purpose – and value – of these bucket lists.
For a start, using the word “bucket” – a receptacle used to collect slop – as a label for a list that is produced from our intense soul searching (think: goals, dreams and aspirations) is downright demeaning. Bucket lists can disappoint badly too. What if bathing in the Ganges in India failed to deliver the therapeutic value you envisaged or your hot-air ballooning over Central Australia proved to be little more than a waft of warm air?
Yet all these holes pale into insignificance when you consider what must be the biggest blemish on the bucket list.
In weighing up life’s overall satisfaction, bucket listers end up obsessing over a few not-so-cheap thrills late in life instead of considering their experiences across a lifetime.
A lack of perspective is the very reason some savvy seniors are opting for the more balanced, less pressurised and more practical option.
A reverse bucket list is a straightforward exercise. Rather than documenting all the things you hope to achieve, you itemise all of your life highlights to date.
You may have given birth to triplets, visited Uluru, stopped by the Acropolis in Greece, had a super-rewarding career, swum with whale sharks, raised thousands of dollars for your favourite charity or – arguably most importantly – found a soul-mate in life.
However, if you happen to consider yourself to be a non-achiever, instead, write down all the things you definitely do not want to do in your senior years.
Unsurprisingly, such a list may might include not riding an elephant in Laos, not getting hitched for a third time, not having a colon cleanse or not dying prematurely during an underwater dive on the Great Barrier Reef.
The point is that you do not have to partake in a spot of falconry in the Middle East or swim with manta rays in the Seychelles for your life to be complete.
If you stop to reflect, you will come up with a catalogue of life experiences that will leave you paying short shrift to that long list known as your bucket list.
And that begs the question: what is at the top of your reverse bucket list? Is it something you have already achieved and are proud of – or something you never want to endure?