To Bucket List Now Or Later

Recently my co-workers and I were having fun listing the things that were on our bucket lists. If you want to get real with someone quickly, play this game. If you didn't have a list before it will reveal a lot about yourself.  Some people didn't understand the rules at first saying things like: "get a longer lunch", or "warm weather for my day off". Sure, these are great things to hope for - but not on a grand scale.

​Bucket list items are things you dream of - things you hope some day to achieve, or places to visit that seem exotic or far away. 

And of course, some of my co-workers didn't want to play. Fine. 

Some of the items on my list are: write (and publish a book), go on safari in Africa, see the northern lights in Alaska (because I love claymation Christmas specials). Other people's items ranged from a Texas transplant seeing her first major league baseball game, a Disney trip for someone's family, hiking the grand canyon, and everything in between. The most interesting answer was also the saddest. 

                                                  "To Be Happy"

To be happy. To be happy! This most definitely should NOT be a bucket list item. No, I don't think she was joking. This person seems to be stressed out all the time and "over booked". Happiness is not something you should wait for. If you can't find the time to be happy now, you may not live to do your bucket items later.  Stress is proven to cause lots of bad things to happen in your body (google it).  

If nothing else, figuring out your bucket list will show you what you still want to do or what maybe you are missing in your life. We encouraged our teammate to figure out a way to be happy now - don't wait to finish her degree, or move to a new state. I'm not sure she is happier yet, but I hope she's trying. 

I wrote the book. It's taken me many years and is in the editing phase. I finally realized if I didn't trust someone else to read it, edit it, and help me, I'd never be able to mark that off my list. Hopefully next year, it will be published.

Bucket list now, don't wait.