If you’ve seen the movie The Bucket List, then you probably was also inspired to have your own bucket list. Since the movie was shown in 2007, I suppose many people are now already on the process of fulfilling their respective lists. Or may be some few lucky ones have already accomplished their list.
For the benefit of those who have not yet seen the movie here’s a synopsis: The movie traces the journey of two terminally-ill men, portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, who helped each other complete their bucket lists apparently before they die. The things they did included skydiving together, flying over the North Pole, visiting the Taj Mahal in India, and riding motorcycles on the Great Wall of China. But what ultimately brought both of them their greatest joys were not the things that money could buy. They were to do with the relationships that they reconciled with the people they care for.
Although it has been said that “you can’t really tell what a person is like till his coffin is nailed”; there are things we can each do that can shape the man on his dying bed, so to speak. What we have established, accomplished, shown, spoken, fought for, and many others we did in this lifetime, define who we really are. They define who we are to ourselves and to other people.
To me a bucket list is most FULFILLING when it is not just all about things physical or only about “I, me and mine”. Which led me to ponder on these 3 significant questions:
Imagine your funeral.
- Who will be there?
- What do others think you stood for?
- What will they say when you are dead?
To my opinion, the answers to these questions definitely matter after we’re gone. Even though it won’t really matter to us anymore by the time (we’re dead) but these impressions will somewhat keep us alive in the hearts and memories of the people we’ve left behind. Our life is our legacy to this world.
Have you tried making your own bucket list? If you intend to make one, you could try to consider this:
Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement prepared a farewell message to his Scouts, for publication after his death. He carried it in an envelope marked “To be opened in the event of my death”. In it, he shared, “… Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best.”
Every single one of us I believe was given the great opportunity to be born and live in this world. Every single one of us is likewise endowed with different life circumstances at varying levels of convenience. However, as life sometimes wills, our lack (challenges, sorrows, hurts, frustrations, pains, et al) especially should not limit or restrain us from experiencing life and having the opportunity to make others experience life thru us and with us as well.
POINT: We should build or design our individual lives to include others. Build on yourself and while you’re at it build also on your family, close friends, acquaintances and to the rest of the humanity within your means and your reach.
Instead of walls, build bridges that connect to people. Write a list that counts or if you already have one, modify it to have even just a little bit of impact to others.
“LEAVE THIS WORLD A LITTLE BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT”. At least to the people close to you. It doesn’t have to be the whole world though 🙂
Good luck!
THOUGHT AVENUE: Speak your mind 