The Bucket List: A Way of Life

Have you ever had a moment of clarity? That instance where, for a split second, everything falls into place in your head and just makes sense? When you suddenly know exactly what you’re supposed to do with your life?

Well, I’ve certainly never figured out what I’m supposed to do with my life. I have, however, in the 25 years I’ve been on this Earth, determined that I want to live my life to the fullest. We only have so much time before we depart for the next world, or whatever happens to us when we die, pending your beliefs or lack thereof. Who am I to judge?

I actually remember the moment I decided to make an official list, of all the things I want to do before I perish. There’s a lovely little place in Plano, TX called Cassis Exotic Drinks and Teas. I recommend going there before you die at some point in your life. The drinks are a tad expensive but worth every sip of the overpriced goodness. I was in the parking lot heading in to get my drink when a man went by on a motorcycle. I looked at the girl I was with, an old roommate, and said “I wish I could ride a motorcycle.” I don’t remember her exact response, though I think it was to chastise me on the dangers of them. “It’s on my bucket list to ride on the back of a motorcycle.” I had told her and she had laughed at me.

“You have a bucket list?”

“Well, I have things I want to do before I die.” I realized in that moment I didn’t know what all they were, and thus the idea for my bucket list was born. When I went home, the first thing I wrote down was: Number One. Ride on the back of a Motorcycle.

As I sat there and tried to think of the things I wanted to accomplish in life, nothing came to me. It felt like an eternity of giving my backside calluses before I had the moment of clarity I spoke of earlier, the moment where suddenly things just made sense.

It isn’t about what you want to accomplish. It’s about the way you live your life, and the fun things you do along the way. There is a difference between being alive and living and I was going to live. That’s when they started coming to me.

I suddenly went from riding on the back of a motorcycle to having things like become fluent in a language other than English, speak french in France and Spanish in Spain, be kissed under the full moon, watch the sun set over the ocean, knit a scarf, donate plasma, hit a bullseye with an arrow. These are just a few of the things I want to do with my life. I’ve accomplished some of these already. I now have 174 activities on my list, and I’m always adding to it. If you want to create your own list and need some inspiration what I have of my list, so far, is down at the bottom of the article. Feel free to steal some ideas!

I say I have a bucket list, but I feel like a bucket list isn’t the right word for it. It’s so much more than that. When you only focus on the fact that the end is coming, it steals the joy out of the life you want to lead. It isn’t about all of the things I want to do before I die. It’s about all of the ways I want to live while I’m here.

• Ride on the back of a motorcycle
• Runaway to a different city under a pseudonym
• Be kissed at midnight on new year's eve
• Finish my autobiography
• Finish at least one of my novels
• Buy a lottery ticket on my 18th birthday
• Be in a parade
• Travel to all 50 states
• Have a speaking role in a movie
• Have a speaking role in a television series
• Star in a film
• Ride on the back of an elephant
• See a 1913 liberty head nickel in person
• Guest star in a television series
• Live in a home on the beach
• Watch the sunset over the ocean
• Have five different species of pet at once
• Be kissed under a full moon
• Start my own charity
• Enter a pageant
• Learn to defend myself (physically)
• Learn how to spar
• Learn how to larp
• Learn to fire a gun and hit what i’m aiming at
• Go to a firing range
• Become fluent in a language other than english
• Break a world record
• Take a once in a lifetime chance
• Survive an earthquake
• Learn to make glass
• Learn astrology
• Learn how to read palms
• Learn to read tarot cards from memory
• Be a fortune teller for a day
• Have a booth at a fair
• Have an exhibit at an art gallery
• Meet and take a picture with mariska hargitay
• Own a ring from kay jewelers
• Grow an herb garden
• Have my picture in a magazine
• Be in a reality show
• Get a tattoo
• See the northern lights (aurora borealis)
• Be kissed in the rain
• Dance in the rain
• Legally change my last name
• Backpack across europe
• Go camping
• Learn to pickpocket
• Learn to knife fight
• Go a month wearing only dresses with no dress being worn twice
• Learn to say hello in 50 different languages
• Have something named after me
• Find a penpal
• Go to an airport look at the departure screen close my eyes and point to a random place, go to that place
• Be in a fashion show
• Stay in a haunted house
• Write an epic poem (at least 100 pages)
• Have my own website with at least 100 viewers for a year
• Make a YouTube video with over 2000 hits
• Learn the arabic alphabet
• Learn to write in hebrew
• Learn 50 chinese characters
• Memorize the greek alphabet
• Be brought flowers for no apparent reason
• Grow a bonsai tree
• Meet royalty
• Get a corset
• Deliver a baby
• Have an article published in print
• Write my own epitaph
• Complete the world's largest commercially available jigsaw puzzle
• Knit a scarf
• Stay out all night just for the sake of being out all night
• Make jewelry with real stones
• Learn to solder metal
• Make sculptures (non clay)
• Hit a bullseye with an arrow
• See a monet painting in person
• Plan out my complete wedding (even if i never get married )
• Plan out my funeral
• Travel to a country i don't have a coin from to get a coin
• Go snorkeling on a shipwreck for treasure
• Learn to waltz
• Start a blog
• Teach a bird to talk
• Teach a bird to talk in two different languages
• Watch a meteor shower
• Gamble in Las Vegas
• Carve my initials in a tree
• Eat breakfast at tiffany's
• Receive a damehood from a foreign country
• Get dual citizenship with italy
• Go on a cruise
• Meet the leader of a country
• Create a time capsule and open it 20 years later
• Learn to fight with a polearm
• Win a tournament
• Place in a tournament
• Hitchhike
• Backpack from coast to coast
• Keep a diary for a year
• Go on a thousand dollar blow off shopping spree
• Shave my head
• Dye my hair drastically
• Go to a convention
• Swim with dolphins
• Learn a song on the guitar
• Go to a nightclub
• Memorize an old book or play
• Get rid of all my clothes and buy a whole new wardrobe
• Stay up all night to watch the sun rise
• Runaway with someone for a weekend without telling anyone where we are
• Be in two places at once
• Be in a commercial
• Design my own room and decorate it the way i want
• Learn to Juggle
• See Halley’s comet
• Jump while horseback riding
• Have an exotic creature as a pet
• Sneak out and be gone for most if not all of the night
• Publish another book
• Write a bestseller
• See a show on broadway
• Go pole dancing
• Create a large mural
• Sleep in a castle
• Audition for American Idol
• See the Golden Gate Bridge
• Go to Hollywood
• Go to Italy
• Go to Paris, France
• Visit a rainforest
• Survive something catastrophic
• Donate Plasma
• Become a mentor
• Get my drivers license
• See the great wall of china
• Learn to count to ten in ten different languages
• Ride a camel
• Complete a “Fame Album” (take pictures with 101 different celebrities or in famous locations or with famous things)
• Send a message in a bottle
• Learn to swing dance
• Write my initials or name in concrete
• Share a sandwich with a hobo
• Travel to Israel
• Get a black belt
• Move to Australia for one week
• Speak spanish in spain
• Speak french in france
• Learn to ride a bicycle
• Learn to rollerblade
• Learn to eat rice with chopsticks
• Drink a strawberry daiquiri on my 21st birthday
• Fold 1000 paper cranes
• Have a position of authority in a job
• Work with habitat for humanity
• Fly first class
• Go skydiving on my 108th birthday
• Create a family of Corn Husk dolls
• Open my own store
• Go skinny dipping
• Kiss Benedict Cumberbatch
• Kiss Tom Hiddleston
• Take a picture of lightning
• Own a fake I.D.
• Eat pizza in Sicily
• Run for president
• Own a black dog named Sirius
• Cook a full course meal
• Dye my hair platinum blonde
• Learn to pick locks
• Get a passport
• Open an alpha booster pack in Magic: The Gathering