A bucket list of possibilities

Heard of the phrase the 'bucket list'? This is a list of things you want to do before you die - or kick the bucket.

The idea is, of course, that when you make the list and see what is really important to you, the question to ask is why - if these things are so important - you're not doing them now.

I was talking to my partner about this, discussing what it is that makes people continue on the hamster wheel, rather than concentrating on doing what they really want, what will really make them happy.  And it struck me that fear has a lot to do with it.

Fear of doing something other than the norm. Being on a hamster wheel, while it might be dull, is at least predictable. You know how to turn the wheel, it doesn't threaten your competence because you know how to do it.  Getting off the wheel might mean you have to do something new and different - and the potential for failure goes up.

The other fear, of course, is fear of mortality.  While you continue to do what's habitual, the grim spectre of mortality is hidden by all this movement. It's only when you stand still, think of doing something different, that  the passage of years comes into sharp focus and the chill breath of death can be felt on your neck.  The noise of the day-to-day hides this - and the silence of stopping it can be so unnerving that many people choose not to.  It can often take something catastrophic to force that pause, the reassessment, the enlightenment.

And finally, the bucket list may not be all that it's cracked up to be. Part of the problem may be that individuals really don't know what will make them happy.  A bucket list which promises so much but delivers little would be a massive disappointment, particularly in the still and quiet as we move away from the sound and fury of everyday life.

So is the answer to the fear of the bucket list to do it? Or not?  I think the answer is probably somewhere inbetween.  Do small things to give you respite from the hamster wheel, to challenge your mortality but not necessarily meet it head on.  To stretch, but without letting go - until you perhaps find that the music of possibility is louder than the din of habit, and therefore harder to resist.