Bucket
List
“You'll
never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.”
George
Michael
In 2007, the Rob Reiner
movie, The Bucket List, was released. It starred Jack
Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two old men from very diverse
backgrounds, who escape from a cancer ward after having been given
terminal diagnoses. They go on an adventure to do the things they'd
always wanted to do before they kicked the bucket. The film is a
crazy romp from sky-diving to visiting the great pyramids, the Taj
Mahal, and the Great Wall of China. In the midst of it, they form a
bond of friendship and come to many realizations about themselves and
what's truly important. That film kicked off a wave of “bucket
list” making in people of my generation. I know quite a few folks
who are now trying to stuff their “twilight years” with
activities they've never done before. I guess they're having fun, but
it always seems a little frantic to me. “I've got to do this so I
can check it off my bucket list.”
Looking at past
generations, what they did and what they actually wanted to do with
their precious lives, hardly ever matched. They did what they had to
do to make a living, and came to consider what they'd dreamed of
doing, as simply that—a pipe dream. Some of those people got to the
end of their lives with many regrets about opportunities missed, and
paths not taken. Not everyone has regrets, however. I heard a coal
miner interviewed on the news recently; a man who could barely
breathe because of black lung disease, who said that if he could, he
would go right back into the mine—because he'd made a “good
living” there. I shudder at the thought, but I guess everyone has
their own definition of what constitutes a good living. There are
many jobs I would never want—being a boxer, or a coal miner ranks right at the top.
If you are young,
however, and have you're whole life ahead of you, pay very serious
attention to your dreams. While it's never too late to do what you
love, following your heart from the beginning makes for a much
happier life. So much so, that at the end of it, you may not need a bucket
list at all.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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