Your Bucket List Just Got Blown Up – Now What?
2020 COVID-19 bucket-list revision:
Daughter’s country club wedding
- Backyard, limit to 20 guests, buy masks, cancel caterer, saved $45K.
Bahama/Mediterranean cruise
- Vision of floating petri-dish won’t go away – cancel, try to recover deposit.
Early retirement
- Hmmm – maybe these non- or semi-retirement heretics are on to something. Buy some books. Find therapist to help with the adjustment.
Upscale condo at upscale retirement community
- Get off the waiting list, kiss off the deposit. Sounds very much like cruise petri-dish but without the motion.
Trips to Machu Picchu and Buddhist ruins, Sri Lanka
- Masks in that heat – yuck! Neighbor’s 2-hour presentation of pictures of same – incredibly boring!! Replace with discovering our own state, driving.
BMW X-7
- Timing belt and new tires for 2016 MDX wins this one.
Use current bucket list to start charcoal grill
- Start over – refocus on what’s important.
- Don’t expect a return to “normal” – what is normal anyway?
I’m not much of a bucket-list guy. It goes with my stoic personality and increasingly hermit-like and insufferable nature. Get me my $5,000 Martin acoustic guitar and I’m pretty well complete. Oh, and a set of custom-fitted Taylormades/Pings/Callaways while you’re filling the bucket. I won’t bother you again after that.
I get a strange satisfaction nudging my decades-old Ford Exploder (that’s not a typo because it could, any moment) past 180,000 miles.
I’ve never understood buying one vehicle for what you could buy three Honda Accords.
So, I’m not having to adjust much but I know most are – and I’m sympathetic. Bucket lists have a goal-setting tone to them, positive visualization, hope and encouragement.
Until they don’t. And I suspect they are now just the opposite. And in need of the revisit.
I suggest it’s time for the revisit and a capitulation to the fact that this “new normal”, whatever it ends up being, is not going to support heavy consumerist bucket lists. Something’s gotta give. Something’s gonna change.
An outside perspective
I’m lateraling the ball this week to one of my favorite bloggers, Susan Williams at Boomingencore.com. Her latest post (see it here) was full of gems, including a 12-minute podcast interview with Dr. Sean Hayes, a clinical psychologist who shares some important perspectives on where we are, including dealing with bucket lists.
Here’s a link to the entire interview. I think you’ll find it enlightening and helpful.
Do you have a bucket list? If so, are you revisiting it? How has your perspective changed regarding a bucket list? Tell us where you are – we’d love to get your feedback.
Good choice on guitars! Bucket lists are often largely self-indulgent stuff I want to to do before death so I don’t feel cheated. They never made sense for me. Living life of mission and making adjustments to the my mission as situations change has always worked for me. It gives me a clear sense of purpose and making adjustments to response to changing situations (a continuing requirement) keeps me flexible, challenged and learning. When I die I will be on mission, not cheated in any way.
Some great thoughts Gary. Even though many people have bucket lists this latest situation is a great reminder to also make sure that we live and embrace everyday as being a bucket list day as you just never know when things may change. Also, thanks so much for sharing our newsletter and video clip – always appreciated. Stay safe, stay well!
I don’t have a “list” but I do have my dreams of the killer trip to Latin America even better with fewer crowds so my hope is teach my way around the world that would be the best to self-finance my dream trip by teaching online anywhere on the globe. I keep my dreams yet no list why is that because the dreams can change a list seems rigid if you do not hit the goal feels like a letdown. I like how the psych said to reframe your dreams change your expectations or Gary’s advice do something local or in-state our country will benefit keeping dollars in the USA. I don’t own a home, a car or massive pension but I own my dreams.
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