On Bucket Lists and Living Life to the Fullest.

I am in the process of reimagining my Bucket List.  If-  heaven forbid- you have never heard of The Bucket List; it's the list of things that you want to do before you kick the bucket.  It's also a terrific movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson and if you haven't seen it- see it and bring the tissues.

 I think we should all have a bucket list.   Some of the folks I have talked to about this have been resistant because it seems morbid to them.  The way I see it, we can't avoid death, it will get us all eventually.  So why not have a list of things to strive for before you reach that inevitibility?  Long before the movie came out, I was thinking about what I wanted to do in my life before I died.  What really started me thinking about this was actually Tim McGraw's song "Live Like You Were Dying".  I have included the video here for you if you haven't seen/heard it. 



I have to admit, just watching it makes me cry and I can't even belt it out without choking up it still has such an effect on me.  As I sit here, with it playing on my other browser, tears are streaming down my face.  That tells me that I haven't reached that point yet that I have gotten it right. 

I went sky diving

I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Blue Manchu

and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter

and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying

and he said someday I hope you get the chance

to live like you were dying.

I don't want to find out that I have a terminal illness before I start living my life the way I should and doing things that I always wished I had.  I ask myself, why wait until you are under the gun and not able to really enjoy these things you want to do?  Aren't we all terminal? 

I have a lot of work to do on myself- I am the first to admit it.  Slowly I am finding more and more about what's inside.  Gratitude journals, inspirational books, this blog, my other writing; they all give me insight into who I am and who I really want to be in this life.  The beginning of this journey is my diagnosis but when I am working on "me"- I don't really think much about my illnesses.  I give thanks that they have given me the imepetus to start this and to make changes to my life but they don't factor into my bucket list or who I see myself becoming.  I will not allow them to stand in my way of living my life to the fullest- I will only allow them to modify the way I go about it.