The Beauty of Bucket Lists

Courtesy of the World Wide Web

Most of my life I had always had the comfort of knowing what was was coming next in my life. I was very blessed to have a stable family life and much of knowing where I was going was due to the support and guidance of my parents. Because of this, I became quite skilled at planning and liked knowing what was next. Graduate high school, go to college, meet a guy in college, graduate college, marry guy from college, start first career...check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Divorce guy I married from college - cheeeeeck...wait a minute. Crap. That wasn't part of the plan!

So there I was in my mid 20s, completely off my proverbial path with no plan. If you know a planner or you are one yourself, you know how unnerving it feels for a planner to be smacked in the face with this unknown reality called AMBIGUITY. Not to know what would come next was damn near frightening. As I fumbled through the first year in this place called ambiguity, frantically trying to find where the emergency exits were, I began to slowly take in this bizarre and incredibly uncomfortable position I found myself in.

Bucket lists as we all traditionally know them to be, are reserved for the time in life when we need an assessment of everything we've done or wanted to do in life before we 'kick the bucket'. But why only use it for that purpose? And why wait until then?

So I created my own list. And rather than live the linear life that I thought I wanted and what was expected of me, I began to ever so cautiously find bits of joy in the freedom of being able to design my life in any way I wanted. It was like being given a huge empty blank canvas and being told paint anything I want. And so I did. I will never forget the first time I hailed a cab in Manhattan. And learned to enjoy eating in a restaurant at a table for one. Or when I booked my first modeling job and recieved my first paycheck. Or the first day of grad school. When I saw the Effel Tower for the first time. Or when I produced my first fashion show. And ziplined in the Costa Rican rainforests.

I am now in my early 30s and though I know I'm still young in the grand scheme of things, the past few years have been overwhelmingly abundant and exhilarating. The moment I allowed myself to accept ambiguity, it freed me to explore outside the box and ask myself, what if and why not. Bucket lists aren't about endings or about where you are in terms of years left in life. It's really about creating new beginnings and starting wherever you may be. You may have experienced a great loss like a partner or a job, but realize this is not where your story ends. It's where a new one begins. So take out a piece of paper, poster board, journal or e-pad and start your own bucket list and design your future in ways you never could imagine. You will never find a more rewarding way to plan your life.