Inspired by that 80-year-old Californian guy who recently completed 80 skydives in less than seven hours, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks thinking about creating a bucket list.
These days, people do not accidentally live awesome lives. They work for it. Fiery impulsiveness and terrifying recklessness must be meticulously planned. A bucket list is a scientifically-proven and Morgan Freeman-endorsed way to achieve said awesomeness.
Without an action-filled plan of action, a person risks losing focus and aimlessly drifting to the point where they find themselves in a tacky, neon-lit club making out with a 53-year-old Kardashian sister while her publicist gently weeps beside a broken tray of tequila shots.
But what, indeed, even constitutes a good bucket list? Should it be reasonable, measured and achievable? Or should it read like the scribblings of a crazy person hell-bent on hurling their mass from various heights while stuffing it with novelty foods and exotic toxins? The latter seems the only real way to get things done.
Our time on this tumbling lump of rock and magma is finite. Planning is crucial. One minute, you’re a screeching newborn, coated in gunk and blinking at cheap fluorescent lights. The next, you’re an awkward anecdote at a boozy wake. In between those two magical points, you’re expected to do stuff – lots of stuff.
Long ago, that stuff was quite simple: Survive, don’t eat lead paint, fight bears, don’t share a bed with more than 15 people. Today, a healthy, varied and fulfilling life isn’t enough. It has to be interesting too.
In an age where every half-drunk aspiring starlet writes a memoir and anonymous internet slobs become globally-circulated memes through random displays of extreme ignorance and a horrifying disregard for personal safety, it’s easy to feel underwhelmed by our own stories.
Who wants to be that guy with the wonderful family and the healthy work-life balance? Wouldn’t we all rather be that weird old man who shouts at strangers and keeps a list of insane, rum-fuelled life goals in his shirt pocket? I know I’d much rather be the guy who gets to draw a line through the words “challenge a retired astronaut to a fight” on a crumpled slip of paper after a charity event.
And so, the first item on my bucket list is to write a bucket list.
My bucket list will make other bucket lists cower in fear. I will win staring competitions with mythical, unblinking creatures while constructing tiny replicas of major population centres. I will invent a new type of punctuation – a demon mark so fierce and complicated that even the brightest of high school students will break into tears at the mere utterance of its name.
I shall win a meat tray – the biggest meat tray any bowls club has ever given away. And I will successfully multi-task.
At first glance, the items on my bucket list may appear self-serving and destructive. But, as any great bucket list-creator knows, we do these things for our loved ones.
When I finally slip away, bleeding internally from severe unicycle-related injuries, I want to be surrounded by friends and family. As they gently shed a tear and tell me they love me, I’ll rant about the time I rolled a monster truck and about how they’re all gutless cowards.
“Look at you spindle-armed paperclips,” I’ll tell my children and their children’s children. “Who among you can say they’ve wrestled a real life sloth with the strength of a thousand lions?” And they will nod solemnly and silently agree that my life was, indeed, awesome.
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