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Dave's Bucket List

Taking time to enjoy life

By David DiehlPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Dave's Bucket List
Photo by Adam Whitlock on Unsplash

Back in 2019, my life took an unexpected turn for the worse. Granted, things have not been well with me since Thanksgiving of 2016, but that is a story for another day. Without elaborating on the details of these particular events that occurred in my life, I woke up to the realization that things need to change. If I did not voluntarily change my life, I would be welcoming my life to change for me. And lately, that latter option has not worked out so well. So where did I start? I began by creating a bucket list.

Now (to the best of my knowledge) I am not in danger of dying any time soon. I am 44 years old and in relatively good health, except for an ever-growing beer belly. But to wait until my late years to begin doing the things that I have always wanted to do just seemed silly to me. Am I really going to want to go mountain climbing or SCUBA diving when I am 70? Probably not. So, it only seemed logical to begin now.

My goal at first was to create a list of 100 things that I wanted to do. In my mind, that seemed reasonable. I figured the first 50 things would come easily, but I may have to dig a little further to discover the next 50. It was only when I started putting the pen to paper that I discovered just how wrong I was.

In one aspect, I was correct. The first 50 items flew out of me easily. Things I have thought about for years such as: travel to Scotland, roast my own coffee beans, go to a Renaissance Fair, or play in a chess tournament. All these things that I have thought about at any given point in the past that seemed interesting to me. What surprised me though is how quickly I got to number 100. I could not believe that in just a couple hours I had easily thought of a hundred things that I had always wanted to do but never made time for in my busy life. Not to mention, how many of these things were cheap (if not free) or easy. They would have only taken a few hours out of my busy day, and I was convinced that they would have increased the joy in my life exponentially.

Realizing that 100 was good, I was not satisfied. As ideas kept coming to me, I continued to write my list, shocked at all the fun things that I have wanted to try but never considered. Granted, some unrealistic items may have hit my list, like “take a spaceship to Mars”, but I did my best to make sure everything I wrote down was doable. For what is the point of a bucket list that is impossible to achieve? So, one hundred items grew to two hundred. Then again to five hundred. Today I am over one thousand items on my bucket list!

As I wrote and wrote, I began getting carried away by the idea of completing these items for than actually doing them! It started to defeat the entire purpose of my bucket list in the first place. I needed to stop writing down things and begin doing them. It was time to start crossing off the items on my list. I randomly picked item 784: make my own Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. Then out to the grocery store I went to pick up chocolate, Reese’s peanut butter, powdered sugar, and muffin tins. They turned out amazing! My first item crossed off the list.

What is the point of this narrative? I want to encourage everyone to simply have fun in their everyday lives. Life slips away from each of us quickly. Many of us do little more than work and sleep on a day-to-day basis. There is so much more! Little things in our lives can break up the monotony and restore excitement. But in order to do something, you need to know what your options are. My initial expectations when I started writing my bucket list was to find 100 things to do. Never did I expect to hit a thousand! And this list still grows as I think of things to add to it.

Take some time today and begin writing your own bucket list. But do not stop at simply writing your list, make time to X off your items. Maybe start with just one item a week, or one a month, whatever works with your schedule. And watch as you start how excited and full of life you become when you take the time to enjoy the things you always wanted to do!

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About the Creator

David Diehl

I am a retired Army Master Sergeant and combat veteran. I as well as stateside, I have served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Now that I have time, I have invested into writing various material from fiction to self help.

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