There is something about bucket lists that disturbs me.  I understand the intent. We should all do all that we can to achieve all possible personal goals. I get that. But, that isn’t how bucket lists feel to those of us in our declining decades. Some of us, perhaps most of us, sometimes see bucket lists as an admonition. Targets not reached.

Admittedly, there is a cognitive dissonance going on here. There is a big difference between the way in which I understand bucket lists logically and how they feel emotionally. 

There are a number of threads to this thought tapestry for me. First is the concept of the bucket. The idea of a bucket list derives from suicide. When someone chooses their own death by hanging, they have to stand on something before they make it happen. If the thing that they are standing on is a bucket, they have to kick it in order to hang themselves. That is the origin of “kicking the bucket.”

It is also, by association, the origin of the bucket list. Before you kick that bucket, perhaps you should make sure you have done all the things in life that you always hoped to do.

But, if you don’t think of buckets in that way, then a bucket as a vessel for unfulfilled wishes makes absolutely no sense. A bucket is used, first of all, to be filled. Usually with water; the essence of life. It is also used for cleaning things; it is how we clean windows and cars and floors and anything that needs a good wash. It is a vessel for improving things, not ending them.

The other major problem I have with this concept is that it associates the freedom of later life with death. My friends and I do not travel, volunteer, donate to good causes, or right ancient personal wrongs because we are dying. We do those things because we can, because we see opportunities, and because they are the right things to do.

We have not spent most of our lives wishing we could do X. X is perhaps something we wondered about, but we could happily go on to the great beyond without doing whatever-it-is. If the thing we wish we had done is still possible, we do it. Or, we rustle up the funds to do it at some time in the future. Or we think it was a bad idea to begin with. Either way, it is not bucket list-worthy.

Essentially, there is a huge divide between doing the best you can with your retirement years and ending those years feeling unfulfilled.  I will continue to enjoy my health and my freedoms even when they become constrained. That means I will be filling my bucket, not kicking it. And, there is no list. There is only life. Now.