Dumping My Bucket List

What’s in your bucket?

I’ve been thinking about my bucket list lately.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about dumping it and making a Joy List instead.

Why?

My bucket list includes things like:

• Ski the Matterhorn
• Dive the Great Barrier Reef
• Visit Pompeii, Ephesus and Hadrian’s Wall.
• Learn to fence
• Sign a multi-book deal with a major publisher
• Watch a Broadway play from behind the scenes

(Others in my family might add: watch a live tornado, drive a DeLorean, or shoot a Caribou.)

At first glance the list doesn’t look so bad. Nothing is immoral, illegal or impossible …

But they are all once-in-a-lifetime kinds of things that require a significant investment of money, effort, and/or luck. They are things I hope I might get to enjoy someday. Certainly, nothing on the list is going to happen in the next few months. Or years. (Can you say college tuition?)

Filling the Bucket with joy instead of dreams

A bucket list tends to focus on grand, expensive or exotic things we dream about. But I am not convinced they will bring enjoyment commensurate with the investment it will take to reach them. Also, I suspect others would have been fun when our bodies were young and in shape, but now we are likely to be both disappointed and very sore (or worse). We may even have things on our bucket list that–if we’re honest with ourselves–we no longer yearn for, or things that we only included to impress someone else.

A Joy List, on the other hand, focuses on what I know brings me joy, instead of what I think might be really cool or exciting.

My Joy List would include things like:

• Share a meal with friends or family members at least once a week.
• Get outside and enjoy every nice day.
• Take walks in the woods with my husband more often.
• Listen to great music, at loud volume, and indulge in as much “air conducting” as I want.
• Finish a two-thirds completed craft project (or two).
• Buy a new game and try it with friends.
• Invite people over to watch our favorite movies.
• Indulge in good-quality chocolate, coffee, cheese, bread, olives, wine …
• Every now and then, eat a spoonful of Nutella. Just because.
• Find more excuses to bake stuff.
• Look for opportunities to get involved in new ministries or service projects that play to my strengths and passions–even if It’s not something I’ve tried before.

As you can see, most of these things aren’t expensive, and many are available to be enjoyed, right now, right here. Why bother filling my bucket with things-I-hope-will-make-me-happy-if-I-ever-get-a-chance-to-try-them when I can fill it with stuff-that-brings-me-joy-right-now and activities-I-can-do-within-the-coming-year-without-going-bankrupt.

So what do you think? Do you like the idea of a Joy List?

What would you put on your Joy List?

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• Imagine you are having a perfect day. What would you be doing?
• What kinds of things make you smile, hum, or dance whenever you do them?
• When do you hear yourself saying, “we need to get together more often and ___”? Decide to stop saying it and actually do those things.

Have fun making your Joy List.

Then have even more fun doing something on the list.

Yellow bucket Photo Credit: stweedy via Compfight cc