Bucket Lists

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away from here, I took a philosophy class. The teacher was great but most of us didn’t realize it at the time. It has taken me a good part of my life to understand what he did for us. I can’t remember his name but I have never forgotten his lessons.
One thing he had us do was to write down what we wanted the epitaph on our gravestone to say. Most 18 yr olds think that they are invincible. Death has nothing to do with them. In asking us to do this simple exercise, he was helping us to face our own mortality. He was reminding us that everyone must die.
He was also teaching us that everyone must live. However long or short the time would be, there would be a life lived. By asking us to write our own epitaph, he was letting us know that how we lived our life was up to us. Ultimately, it would be our choices that affected the course of our journey. He was making us accountable for the rest of our lives.
Another lesson required us to write down everything we wished to do with our life. Today, we would call it a “bucket list.” Again, he was reminding us that our how we lived our lives was up to us. He cut through the fog surrounding us at that age and helped us to focus on the obscure, far away place that was the rest of our lives.
I recently had reason to mentally take this list out, dust it off and review it. Guess what? I’ve done almost everything on the list! That was a shocker! Another shocker was almost none of it was accomplished the way I had originally thought.
For instance, I had wanted to travel the world especially the U.S. I have yet to do the world travel but there are only 5 states I haven’t been to. I went through some with my ex and children while he worked his way across the country. I went to all the others with my truck driving husband.
I wanted to “rescue” old homes, fix them up and find them good families. I have moved over 50 times since I was 18. I remodeled every place I ever lived in. I forgot to add to my list that I wanted to make money at it. Oops!
I’m thinking that if most of us went back over our lives we’d be surprised at how many of our dreams have come true albeit not exactly the way we thought they would. I also think that whatever your age is- it might be a good time to do these two things- what do you want your epitaph to say? And write down at least 10 things on your “bucket list”. It’s a great time of year to do this, don’t you think?
By the way my 18 yr old epitaph read-“The world was a better place because she was in it.” Still can’t think of a better one. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?