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A Better Bucket List?

A Personal Perspective: Ideas for the psychologically attuned.

Key points

  • People who are psychologically attuned may have less conventional bucket lists.
  • Ideas include travel that involves your field of work, or creative activities such as writing or theater.
  • Relational bucket list ideas could include adventures or getaways with friends.
 Renee Gaudet/Pixabay
Source: Renee Gaudet/Pixabay

Many people's bucket lists are conventional: perhaps going on safari and eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Especially if you're psychologically attuned, you might prefer one or more of these:

Travel

Visit or even volunteer for a few days at one or more of your field's iconic centers. For example, If you’re a helping professional who lives in a small town, you could visit a public health clinic in New York and London, or in exotic locations, from Newfoundland to New Guinea.

If you’re a writer, how about attending a couple of writers’ retreats, perhaps one in Washington's San Juan Islands and one in Stratford on Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace.

If you're a human resources person, you might enjoy visiting colleagues in a few locales that intrigue you.

Create

Here are some ideas for people who want their bucket list to include creative activity:

Write the talk you’d give if you knew you’d get run over by a bus tomorrow. Submit it to a local or wider-circulation publication. Want to make a YouTube video of you reading or ad-libbing it?

Make a legacy craft, for example, a piece of embroidery or a patchwork quilt that could become a family heirloom. Perhaps choose a theme of emotional significance for you.

If you’re a musician, might you want to aim to perform in a venue, even if it's only at an open-mic night? You could do it solo or join or even start a musical group.

Ever aspire to be on stage? How about auditioning for a role in a community theater play? Or be a backstager: costumes, lights, sound, set building. Though behind the scenes, you likely will feel part of something exciting.

Are you an artist? How about aiming to show your inspiring work at a local café, bank, or art gallery, or even—with the owner’s permission—a mural on a blighted wall or in a restaurant?

Speaking of restaurants, an under-considered option is the Japanese omakase, the traditional, elegant, lengthy multi-small-course meal. Or stay overnight at a Ryokan, a Japan-inspired serene, small hotel. Both are ideal for reflection.

Relational

Are you more relational?

How about inviting your two or three favorite people to join you for a few days, whether beachside in Hawaii, in a cabin near a national park, or wherever? Or if you’re more active, you could invite them on a rafting or ski trip, mountain (or at least hill) climb, or to hike at least part of a famous trail like the Appalachian Trail. My friend Bob Schoen's bucket activity was to walk across America, and he wrote a book about it.

Or maybe you just want to go on safari.

I read this aloud on YouTube.

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