Bucket list...

I don’t have a bucket list. It’s not that my life has been so exciting that there’s nothing left for me to do, but the idea of a(nother) bungee jump, meeting the Queen, playing football with any well known footballer, walking the Inca trail, or making an omelette for Jamie Oliver just doesn’t do it for me. In fact the longer and harder I think about it I find it hard to think of a single thing that I really desperately NEED to do before I kick the bucket.

Yes, you might say my bucket is empty or even has a hole in it (Dear Liza, dear Liza), but personally I don’t think I want a bucket or a list of any kind.

There was a time when I lived my life by lists. Tick lists, wish lists, lists of meetings, lists of places I had to go to, list of things I needed to do, lists of the lists I needed to make. A world of lists on my computer, in my book, on scraps of paper – lists, lists, lists, list, lists.

In many ways it was really comfortable. You see my lists took most of the uncertainty out of my life and with that uncertainty went some of the worry. There’s no time to worry when you are working to a list. You are on automatic, fulfilling the things you have programmed yourself to do and if you do it well then you go to bed each evening happy and at peace with yourself; secure in the knowledge that you have completed that particular day’s list - even if you achieved absolutely nothing and have another (almost identical) list for tomorrow.

Lists are like that, they give you the semblance that you are getting somewhere even though all you are doing is preparing another list and really not getting anywhere at all.

These days I still make lists but there are less of them and usually it really doesn’t matter if I complete them or not. It’s a nice place to be; not driven, no demands, no need to worry.

And I’m getting better at it.