A few thoughts about the "bucket list"

Bucket lists tend to be more varied and surprising than you might expect

For the last few months, I’ve been at work on a book project which I’ve tentatively titled, “A Worthy Adventure,” though maybe a travel memoir should really be called “Are We There Yet?” Yesterday, I was pulled into the rabbit hole of “internet research” and came up with a lot of information about bucket lists that I probably can’t use in the book. So, what better place to offer the fruits of my research than here on my Substack newsletter! Enjoy.

The origin of the term “bucket list” is obscure, but the 2007 film called The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, cemented the term in the modern consciousness. Having found widespread use, the term even entered the Oxford English Dictionary, though not until 2013. Just about everyone now knows that a bucket list is a list of experiences or achievements people hope to complete before they die – or “kick the bucket” (an English idiom which also has an obscure origin.)

Former President Barack Obama once staged an impromptu visit to Stonehenge in 2014 following a NATO summit in Wales and announced to a curious press corps that, with his visit to the site, he had “knocked it off the bucket list.” (Presumably, “become President of the United States” ranked higher than “see Stonehenge,” but Obama’s complete list has not been made public.)

In photographs I’ve seen, he seemed genuinely excited to be there, but dropping by Stonehenge for 20 minutes and then announcing that you’ve crossed it off your bucket list suggest that seeing Stonehenge – or standing in front of the Taj Mahal, or visiting the Louvre, or observing a pride of lions under a tree in the Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya – is something that, having been done, can be considered done with.

In The Bucket List, the main characters meet in a hospital room because they have both been diagnosed with cancer. Together they decide that before they die they must go places and see things. And so, improbably, the two geriatric cancer patients set off to see the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Hong Kong, the French Riviera, and the Himalayas – an impressive list, even for two younger, healthier people.

The late film critic Roger Ebert panned the film and described the travel experience as “an orgy of male bonding.” In his words, “The Bucket List thinks dying of cancer is a laff [sic] riot followed by a dime-store epiphany.” He imagined that most cancer patients lying in their hospital beds would not recognize themselves if they happened to see the film. In the general public, however, the film was received more charitably and grossed more than $175 million.

The film may have advanced the idea that bucket lists are primarily about places we want to see before we die, but the truth – I am happy to report – is that bucket lists tend to be quite varied, occasionally surprising, sometimes inspiring. Not everyone, as it turns out, wants to go somewhere and see something and then be done with it. The website bucketlist.net is a kind of exchange where people make a bucket list and invite others to give them advice and help them accomplish an item on the list. “41 years old and never been kissed” was predictable, I suppose, but “Are you a pianist who could give me a lesson; I would at least like to play ‘A River Flows In You’ before I die” was touching.

The social media site Reddit.com has a subreddit for bucket lists, and there too I was reminded that fabulous vacations in exotic locations are not what everyone dreams about. For her number-one bucket-list item, one person wrote, “100 days of no purging, now on day 27 :)” Another wrote, “I want to buy my family a house, a nice, functional one.” Still another wrote, “I’m trying to make it through the complete list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die.” Even a person who did mention travel as her number-one item gave hers a nice twist. She wrote, “See the northern lights in Scandinavia on a cold winter night, surrounded by nature, sitting next to the love of my life.” And then, though there are thousands more, here’s one I understood: “I want to write a book.” Me too.

One downside to compiling a bucket list is that it implies a “check off the boxes” approach to life, which hardly seems to me to be the same as worthy adventure. Worthy adventures can be spontaneous (“C’mon, let’s drive over to see Stonehenge, as long as we’re in the U.K.!”) A few of my own worthy adventures have been like that, but mostly, in my experience, a worthy adventure requires careful planning, perhaps some inner dialog about “why am I doing this?” and “what purpose will this serve?”

I can’t help but remember another film in this connection, the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, the main character who is played by Jimmy Stewart, never achieved anything on his bucket list – like going to college, becoming an architect, and escaping the narrow confines of Bedford Falls. But when given the opportunity to reflect on his life, and seeing his life through Clarence’s eyes, he concludes that he lived a worthwhile life after all. He never let his own wishes, like going on a honeymoon, get in the way of more urgent matters, like saving the Building and Loan from the evil Mr Potter. His choices – his sacrifices – made a difference in more lives than he was aware. And that’s one reason why people still cherish the film more than 60 years later.

Checking items off a bucket list does not always lead to happiness or a sense of fulfillment in one’s life.

(Photos: A few of my own bucket list items: snowshoeing in the Alps, arriving at Santiago de Compostela, playing chess at Reichenbach Falls, and making it to the top of Grosser Mythen.)