I don’t have an actual document containing my Bucket List, but if you ask me what is on it, I’m likely to rattle off a few things that I want to achieve or experience before I kick the bucket.  My list, however, seems to vary from day to day.  

How does a person end up with a Bucket List in the first place?  

I suppose it begins with a sense of one's own mortality, dawning upon us that we’re not going to live forever; and if we really want something, we’d better get to it. Most of us, of course, don’t want to think about our mortality, which is why we come up with weird euphemisms to make us feel better:  kicking the bucket, buying the farm, pushing up daisies, resting in peace, crossing over Jordan…  But even with all that sugarcoating, our finitude nags at us and we start to think about our unfulfilled dreams.

I got to thinking about all this because of an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal, “Shred Your Bucket List:  Why ‘Must Do’ Travel Plans Are Ruining Your Vacations.” The author, Sebastian Modak, a travel writer, argues that the most impressive places he’s been in his “long life” (he’s 34 years old) were not the destinations on everyone else's Bucket List.  Since Modak is a travel writer, he’s probably been to more places than I have, so I’ll take his word.  He argues that the places that should be on one’s must-see list ought to relate to one’s unique personality. He writes that no one else, not even a travel writer, can come up with that list for you.  

He’s right.  Believe me, I’ve tried to take other people to places that are perfect for me, and not everyone gets the same buzz as I do.  For example, no one else in my family wanted to go with me to see the house Millard Fillmore built.  On the other hand, there’s not a shopping mall in the world that is on my Bucket List.  

When I used to organize trips for Chinese scholars visiting the U.S.A., it seemed they all had the same Bucket List:  Niagara Falls, Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., Miami, Key West, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Yosemite, and San Francisco.  I’ve been to them all, and I’m glad I went.  Some of them I could go again, a hundred times, and never tire:  Washington D.C., New York City, Yellowstone…  On the other hand, some of them are “been there, done that.”  Key West.  Las Vegas.  Niagara Falls.  Graceland.  Disney.  

While almost all my Chinese friends came to this country with identical “must see” lists, as I got to know each one of them personally I discovered things about their personalities and interests that led me to suggest other places they might want to add. Consequently, many of my foreign friends went home raving about places not on any of their colleagues’ lists:  state fairs, Custer State Park in South Dakota, downtown Nashville, the Irish Festival in Milwaukee, the Sonoran desert in Arizona, civil rights sites in Selma, the Shark Bike Trail in the Everglades, Harper’s Ferry…

Back when I was in my twenties, I didn’t call it a Bucket List, but I did have goals I wanted to pursue before I turned infirm and fragile, conditions I assumed hit everyone at age 70. There wasn't any great urgency back then, as I had decades left to get around to everything. 

In one of my spiritual retreats a few years ago, I did some journaling about which raw ambitions were driving me through the first decades of my life.  That's when I came up with the BIG FIVE, even though each item on the list had been pushing me long before I finally got around to writing them down.  I was in my 50s before finally naming my de facto Bucket List. First was to write a best-selling book.  Second was to get a Ph.D.  Third was to have a super-marriage—that is, to find a wife who would share such mutual adoration with me that we would glide over every pothole and difficulty in life and never even notice.  Fourth was to be such a popular pastor that I would get elected bishop.  And fifth was to have perfect health until the moment I died of a sudden heart attack, at age 101, or 102—either age would do.   

But we all know that when a man plans, the demons laugh.  God, meanwhile, readies a few rescue plans and starts tossing alternatives our way.  In my case, I’m still trying to get that first book written. As for the rest of the BIG FIVE, I'm just getting around to having a good laugh at my naiveté.

But while the BIG FIVE only became conscious to me in middle age, there is a document I wrote in my mid-twenties about my lesser ambitions, sort of a Bucket List of things I wanted to try and get good at. Some of the things on that list I was already enjoying by my mid-twenties and wanted to continue.  Other items were things I’d never tried, but thought I might like.  

I still have that list, written in red ink on the back of an envelope: watch lots of movies, go to baseball games all over the country, play softball until infirm, grow plants, swim, play volleyball, play horseshoes, travel to all 50 states and all 7 continents, extend my map collection, become an excellent photographer, learn to fish, play basketball, buy and read thousands of books, become an expert on American presidents and politics, learn to perform magic, write for an audience eager to read my next writing, cook like my Grandma Smith, get a telescope and learn all the stars in the night sky, do math for fun, join a bowling team and discover how I managed to get a strike, get into model trains, play pinochle with friends several times a week, read history and visit all the historical places in my books, improve my golf, collect political cartoons, play tennis regularly, have pets, go camping. 

That list was prophetic. More than half the things I'm still doing. Granted, once I graduated from seminary, there was no need to procrastinate doing homework, and thus no need to see who wanted to play Pinochle. I've even forgotten the rules, its been so long. I never did get into swimming, fishing, magic, or horseshoes. I'm too short for volleyball, and golf got too expensive. I do not do math for fun, but I do read the dictionary, which is just as nerdy. 

Looking at those two lists now, The five BIG FIVE and the musings scratched on the back of that envelope, I realize that the BIG FIVE list came from stuff I’d heard others talk about.  The list I scratched out on the back of that envelope, however, mostly came from what I was already learning about myself.  

That list on the back of the envelope was written too early in my life for me to know how much I would one day come to like art museums, or children, or grandchildren, or cooking things that didn’t always include gravy.

I’ll be 70 a year from next summer, so according to my 20-year old self, I’ve only got 15 months before I become incompetent and helpless.  I'd better get on with things.   

What should be on my bucket list?  What would reflect my values, my passions, and my unfinished work? What adventures still beckon me?  I don’t want a Bucket List that simply pushes me to keep up with the Jones.  I’m a Smith.  The Joneses are our competition.  I don’t want to play out the rest of my life on their terms.  Come to think of it, I don’t even know of a fellow Smith that is exactly like me.  What is my own individual, unique list?  

First, there are things in my mind I want to write down, even if no one else cares to read them.  Insights and memories and hopes are gifts that life has given me, and I’ve always valued being a good steward of what I had.  So, I write away.

Second, there are institutions that have made me rich in mind and soul and I want to give back.  Even though I am retired from the church, and even though the army would never take me these days, I love both my church and my country. I am now an elder in both cultures, and there are treasures we elders have that can still be valuable, such as being free to spend time remembering, observing, and perceiving things that are invaluable to those who are still in the game.

I still want to go places, but nowadays more by car than plane, and at my own pace.  While a few new places are on my “must see” list, most are where I’ve already been.  I want to go back and soak up the spirit and the memories, let places of acquaintance become familiar and holy.  

My Bucket List also incudes everyday stuff:  making the cashier at the grocery store laugh, checking in by phone with friends and family, losing myself in a good novel, enjoying a made-up bed, fretting over the Cubs…

I started keeping a daily diary after my third retirement. The idea came from a couple of our past presidents, John and John Q. Adams.  They both kept extensive diaries as a way to hold themselves accountable for making the best of each day.  In those diaries we read both their self-satisfactions and their self-loathing.  They chided themselves if they thought they had wasted a day.  And they tooted their own horns (at length) when they felt proud or superior because of an accomplishment or a righteous argument developed.  

I’m fine to waste an hour here and there.  But I don’t ever want to waste a whole day.  I find that my diary helps me look back to see if I did anything worthwhile the day before.  And by knowing that I must write an account of each day, it keeps me more mindful to spend at least a part of each day doing something of value.

What’s on your Bucket List?  It’s a conversation worth having. I always enjoy hearing back from my readers when something I've written sparks thoughts and memories.

Mike