Bucket List
Apparently the term bucket list was coined by Justin Zackham who wrote the screenplay for the 2007 film “The Bucket List.” He originally created a "List of Things to do Before I Kick the Bucket" for himself, which he then shortened to "Justin's Bucket List.” That personal list became the inspiration for the movie, which I saw when it first came out. Though the content of the movie didn’t stick with me, the concept did, and I’ve referred to it many times over the years—both for myself and in conversation with patients.
It was the most useful when I was in my 40s. At the time, I was living and working in Honolulu where I was content with my life, for the most part. I was working as a therapist at Kaiser Permanente and had friends and family with whom I’d spend weekends; it was fun. But after living in Hawaii for five years, things were getting predictable and one day, sitting at my desk at work, I asked myself: “Is this it? Is this what I’m going to do until I retire? Sit here for the next 20 years, then cash out my pension?” The mere thought of this possible future sounded—well, stifling.
At that point, I was 43, and my life had not turned out as I had envisioned. I never married or had kids, which were hard pills to swallow. By that point, it became even more painfully obvious that there were things in my life I couldn’t control (those involving others) and things that I could (those involving only me). Therefore, to cope with my grief, I decided to make a bucket list of that which I had the power to change, independent of anyone else. Doing so gave me a purpose, lifted my spirits, and brought the fuzzy picture of my midlife crisis into focus. At the time, my bucket list looked something like this:
Bucket list in 2011:
Visit all 50 states, #1 priority being Alaska
Visit 6 out of 7 continents: only one left being Australia
Visit Southeast Asia
Live in a foreign country
Learn to speak another language fluently
Live in a town like Mayberry
Live in an apartment above a store on a main street of a town
Write a book and publish it
Looking back on the past 15 years, I’ve chipped away at a few of the items on my list. But as I often tell my patients, goals typically take years—not weeks or months—to accomplish. I lived in France, but did not stay long enough to learn how to speak French fluently. I have eleven more states to visit, and I’m planning on vacationing in eight of them this summer. I lived in a town like Mayberry for the past four years, and it was lovely. And I did write a book (my first novel) that is supposed to be published later this year. So I am slowly but surely making progress…
By fall, I’ll still have Alaska, Kansas, and Rhode Island on my list. In the past year, I’ve started to learn Chinese, Italian, and Spanish, but have yet to commit to one of them. I’d love to go to Thailand at some point, and I’ve thought about retiring in Mexico in the future. If I end up there, I will certainly learn how to speak Spanish fluently. As far as living above a store goes, that seems the most unlikely. But who knows…my life never turns out like I think it will—and, honestly, I like it that way.