Monday, February 22, 2010

How full is your bucket?


If you had one day left to live, what would you do? Ride a bull? Throw a legendary party for everyone you love? Vegas? Now, if you had your whole life to live, would you lose that drive, or would your list just keep getting longer? It's all in the question: "What do you want to do before you die?"

It's reading week and I'm home (as are a lot of university students). Everyone's break seems to have fallen in the same time frame. Everyone's frantically trying to find plans to fill up their week; however, for me, instead of thinking about my plans for the week, I'm constructing my bucket list of goals I want to achieve before I die.

There's a new TV show that I've been watching on http://www.mtv.ca called The Buried Life which tells the story of four university students from British Columbia. These four friends have constructed a list of 100 things they want to do before they die. They journey across North America trying to accomplish everything on it. The main plot revolves around the question, "What do you want to do before you die?" For every thing they strike off their list, they help a stranger do something that they want to do before they die. It's such a motivational and inspiring show. It's also pretty amusing and hilarious while they attempt to achieve goals such as "party in the PlayBoy mansion" and "go on a date with Megan Fox".

It really got me thinking of things I want to do and there's no reason why I can't cross everything off on my bucket list. I suggested to my boyfriend that we should both come up with 50 goals each and, every year, cross a few off.

Here's what I've cooked up with so far (in no specific order):

  1. Travel to Ireland
  2. Write and publish a book
  3. Become a well established and well known independent visual artist
  4. Sell a painting for a ridiculous amount of money
  5. Go white water rafting
  6. Sky dive
  7. Take up skiing as a hobby
  8. Learn to surf
  9. See Stonehenge
  10. Float in the Dead Sea
  11. Visit the Lascaux Caves
  12. Take salsa or tango dance lessons
  13. Ride in a hot air balloon
  14. Go on a helicopter ride
  15. Go snorkelling somewhere exotic
  16. Go rock climbing
  17. See the Taj Mahal
  18. Climb up the Statue of Liberty
  19. Go camping around the Cabot Trail
  20. Jump from the top of a waterfall
  21. Fly a kite
  22. Learn a magic trick
  23. See a NHL game live
  24. Learn how to sew
  25. Finish learning how to play guitar
  26. Learn different types of origami
  27. Read all of The Chronicles of Narnia
  28. Get a Masters degree in Fine Arts
  29. Go tubing on water
  30. Donate blood
  31. Watch the 250 top movies on IMDB
  32. Learn to drink wine
  33. Get married
  34. Swim with dolphins
  35. See penguins
  36. Revisit my old house
  37. Go on a safari
  38. Ride a camel
  39. Go on a silent retreat
  40. Get a professional massage
  41. Stay in the Hydropolis Underwater Hotel
  42. Scream from the top of a mountain

So, what do you want to do before you die? Start constructing your list. It can be as simple or as complex as you want. Just don't ever think of a goal as being unachievable or farfetched. That's not even a possibility. Every goal is achievable if you put your mind to it.