How to Shorten the Bucket List

This morning, Mike and I had a long discussion about living life out of habit vs. living based on choice. Being mindful and aware 100% of the time is a lot of work but perhaps the only way to stay out of one's default mode.

I tell myself that I don't like to exercise or go to the gym since I see it as taking me away from my "projects." I love to work on projects since that is how I get my strokes. Others may get a a rush from working out or being in the gym, but not me. This feeling leads to resentment.

After the Dad's 80th birthday reunion cruise, I felt like a total whale. At one point, BOTH knees were hurting. The truth is I know it's too much weight for my knees to handle. The truth is I know I should lose 30-50 pounds to prolong my life. The truth is I can't get myself psyched to do this. Each time I try, it works for about 3 weeks then falls apart. Usually, I get sick--flu or something. (Of course, this is counter to Mike's philosophy and his "medical evidence" but it is my experience proven time and time again.) I need an incentive to make losing this weight worthwhile since doing it to prolong my life is insufficient.

So, here's the trick to shortening the bucket list: prioritize and tell the truth. I can make a deal with myself to tell the truth. Only when this ground rule is set in place does prioritizing make sense. The shoulds, sense of overwhelm, living life by default, all that goes away.

Here are my truths:
* I decide what has meaning in my life and what doesn't. The corollary is that I can not enforce meaning on someone else. Just because I treasure something, doesn't mean my kids will treasure that same item or experience. This is painfully evident in cleaning out the home of a deceased relative. How many of the items collected and accrued over the years by the deceased have the same meaning to the one charged with sorting out the goods? Another example comes in the form of childhood birthday parties. How many parents go to great lengths to plan a giant celebration for their child's first or second birthday (or third, fourth, etc.)? How many of those kids remember those parties?

* I get to decide when something loses meaning. In college, I was on a pre-med track which required Physics. I swore up and down that I would not take physics. Later, when I dropped the bomb on my mom and told her that I did NOT want to become a doctor, but rather an architect, I learned that Physics was required for Architecture. I took the class, got an A, no problem. I stopped treating Physics as my arch-nemesis and got on with my life.

* Life is about experiences, not about things. I do not believe in acquiring the best, wearing the finest, or accruing the most money. I just like to experience things. The way I see it, I can't take it with me when I die so what's the use of hoarding? Better to share.

* The body and mind are separate entities. As the folks at the Center for Independent Living, and Adam Beck ("Expecting Adam") have shown me, often beautiful souls are trapped in the most uncooperative bodies. I often feel that way. That's why I love thinking and living in my mind. My knees, back, seasickness, carsickness, altitude sickness, all limit my actions--but I can think and create, even if locked in solitary confinement.

* I am not afraid of death. It's simply another state of being. My soul will go on. As Eve Rosenbloom said, when you are born, it's like entering a room in a house. While you are alive, you meet all sorts of people in that room. When you die, you simply go into another room. Often, people can hear you or sense you in that other room, but they simply can not see or touch you.

So where is all this going? I realize that I may be running out of time to complete all of my projects--especially if I don't lose 30-50 pounds. But until this morning, I wasn't able to find a way to motivate me to do so. I still tell myself I don't like to exercise. I'm not afraid of death. I know the world won't end if I don't finish my bucket list of projects. They are not critical in the greater scheme of things. So, I found an incentive: use my weight loss to raise money for the "50 Forward" campaign. Mike and I'll contribute $1000 for every pound lost. People can join me or give me pledges. My loss is CPS's gain.

So the way to shorten the bucket list is to only put on the things that make a difference to you--and be honest about it!