Some of the things on my (non) Bucket list…

Many people have a “Bucket List” – a list of things they want to do or accomplish before they die. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that – there are things I want to get done before I go, too. First and foremost, I want to live to be 100 years old.

I have a different perspective. There are certain things I do NOT want to do before I die, and I have a good reason (in my opinion) for for not wanting to do them. The fact is that I don’t want to do them precisely because they might actually kill me.

Let me explain my thought process, here…

Let’s say that there are Four things that I would like to do:

1. Be swallowed whole by a whale, excavate my way through the entire length of his body using only a tooth brush, when I get to the very tip of his tail, make a small incision (excision?), let myself out, swim to the surface and back to shore – all on one breath. 
2. Stow away in the wheel well of the Space shuttle just before the final lift off, wearing only my socks and a parachute and carrying only a screw driver, a harmonica and a roll of duct tape, wait until half way through the 27th orbit around the Earth, use the screw driver to open the wheel well, drop out and sky dive back to Earth playing “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round The Mountain When She Comes” – all on one breath.
3. Hike up Half Dome 11 times. All on one breath.
4. Survive long enough to get all three done.

Here’s the rub… If I attempt any of these things I could die in the process. If I die in the process of accomplishing any of these things, I would be prevented from accomplishing the other three things on the list. Hence, I would fail to accomplish at least two of my goals. 

I know what you’re thinking, here: “Well, what if you don’t actually die until you attempt thing #3? You would still have met two of your goals.” 

An almost valid point you have there. The problem is that goal #4 would not have been met. That fact alone makes your point almost valid, but not completely valid. Aside from that, “Seriously?”. 

There are many things I don’t want to do in my life (for the reason listed a couple of paragraphs north of here). In fact, I add to my list daily, and it won’t be very long before that list is infinitely long.  

The problem is that I only have so much time to not do each of these things, and if my primary goal of living to be 100 years old is met, I only have another 39 years to squeeze in all of that non-accomplishment. 

And that’s only half of my dilemma!

Here’s the other half…

If I put too much emphasis on  not doing the things that I don’t want to do, I won’t have time to do the things I DO want to do!

I have come to the point in my life where, if I am ever not going to do some of this stuff, I had better hurry up and not do it now, before it’s too late and it’s done before I know it. 

As an illustration of the types of things that I am currently working my butt off not to do, I am including this video presentation.

* Disclaimer: While there are some things in here that I might possibly try, anything that involves snow, water, sky, cliffs, bicycles, speeding cars, rails of any sort; or anything that would take my feet off the ground, turn me upside down, inside out or does not involve a basketball hoop is out of the question. So don’t ask.