Not my bucket list

I read a blog the other day someone had posted about their bucket list.  The blog comprised a spectacular collection of ambitions they hoped to achieve before they kicked the proverbial bucket.  It made me think about what my bucket list would be and I was surprised that actually I found it incredibly difficult to come up with anything of real substance.

It would be fair to say that I’m not big into planning, and call me boring but I don’t have huge ambitions to scale great heights, write a book, visit the wonders of the world (ok that would be pretty good, but hey I travel loads and I’m very happy with the places I’ve already visited and I know there will be more to come).  So why does drawing up my bucket list present me with such a problem?  Have I no ambition, no drive?  I don’t know the answer to that, hence my blog.  Perhaps when I get to the end of this I will have some answers.

OK I know that I am not without drive – I’m a mature student who gives up a significant chunk of her life and, despite the challenges, remains compelled to achieve a decent degree.  Ambition, well now thats is an interesting one.  I think that my aspirations are a bit like my eyesight – I’m pretty ok with the close up stuff but distance, forget it.  My aspirations seem to be in the now, and maybe the tomorrow, but certainly the day after is a blur.  This is not to say that my aspirations are limited as such, because I have absolute confidence when the day after arrives my new collection of aspirations also arrive with it – and so the ongoing cycle continues.  So for me I think I am fortunate to have enough in my now to aspire to and also the confidence to accept that tomorrow will present new aspirations and challenges for me to rise to.

As I thought about this what struck me is how much easier I found it – if presented with the proverbial bucket – to think of things I would go back and change rather than things I may still want to do.  This is not quite as negative as it might sound – bear with me on this one.

If we are honest I believe that we can all reflect on our lives and identify things we may wish we had done differently, or not at all.  Have you considered things that you wish you had done earlier, or done later in your life at a time when, how can I put it, you had a bit of maturity behind you allowing you to reflect on and perhaps react to situations differently?  In no particular order this is what I came up with:-

• I would have become a ‘mature’ student when I was a bit less ‘mature’.  I don’t know that I would necessarily say that I would have gone to university straight out of school, but I would like to have achieved my degree by the time I was 40, rather than the scheduled 50.

• I would have had more children – and I would have wanted them to all to be boys.

• I’d have got on the property market earlier in life rather than just renting.

• I would have learned how to accept a compliment earlier in my 20s, rather than waiting until late in my 30s to acquire the ability to accept and cherish it in the spirit it is given.

• On reflection I now accept that as regards an assessment of boyfriends in my youth my grandmother was pretty much always right – I wish I had listened.

• Also on the subject of boyfriends I wish that on the occasion I was stood up by a guy I was going to a concert with I had actually gone to the concert – instead tearing up the tickets and going home in a huff (don’t judge me I was 17 and extremely hurt).

• In this technical age it is so easy to keep in touch with people.  Over the years (pre-email) I have lost touch with friends that I wish I hadn’t – I would have written more letters.

• I would have gone with my gut instinct and sacked the lawyer handling my divorce and changed to one that put my best interest as her priority.

• I would have applied for more jobs – especially all the ones that I thought I had no chance of getting (I’ve discovered late in life that I’m a bit of a whizz at interviews and as long as I can get my foot in the door I’m in with a shout at getting the job).

• I would have started my own business – instead of allowing someone else to do it and take the credit (ouch that one still stings a bit).

• I would have righted more wrongs (had I the confidence to do so) – the ghosts of some of them still remain with me today destined perhaps never to be fully laid to rest.

• I wouldn’t have given up so many things because I didn’t think it was cool; being part of the swimming team for example – I was blooming fast and who knows what path this may have taken me down.

• I would have saved myself a fortune had I acknowledge earlier in my life that in the shoe department heels are not for me.

And finally

• I would have signed up earlier to the don’t take crap off anyone allow anyone to mistreat you rule.

OK on reflection maybe some of the things on my list may not have been life changing had I approached them with my 45 year old heart and head, but it’s been interesting to contemplate the possibilities.  I should clarify that I believe I have done well to learn my life lessons thus far and I’m fortunate to look back on my life with very few regrets.  Maybe the process of writing this blog has been productive and perhaps the considerations I have given to this subject ensure that the contents of my bucket list are now not so obscure to me after all.

I’m off now to buy a trumpet, book my sky-diving lessons and have my nose pierced – if you’re reading this husband I’m joking – at least about the first two (I’ve always fancied having my nose pierced!).