'Life is for living', according to the well-used expression: What we choose to do is up to us. That may not be completely true, but there is no harm in dreaming about what we'd like to achieve in our life. Many of us write a list of things we'd like to do before we die - often called a bucket list.

 

Bucket lists have been called 'the greatest hits of your life' and have helped some people overcome anxiety which would have stopped them following their dreams.  Some of us may choose to write one to fill our life with exciting and new experiences - from skydiving to swimming with sharks – the list is unlimited¹.

 

This is something the BBC radio programme All In The Mind has been looking at. It heard from a blogger called Annette White who said she made a promise to live her bucket list which "continuously pushes the comfort zone to its limits and beyond it." Such a list can be exciting and can indeed help you plan your life and give you focus. When the BBC reporter Helen Fawkes knew she was suffering from incurable² ovarian cancer, she took comfort in drawing up a bucket list -although she called it her 'list for living' because these were things for making the most of life. Sadly, she was not able to achieve all of her 50 things before she died at the age of 45.

 

Creating a bucket list can certainly give us hope, but some people have argued it can be used as a coping³ strategy⁴ to try to control something uncontrollable - death. Clinical psychologist Linda Blair told the BBC that she was "not really in favour of bucket lists… [they] take you away from the chance to be spontaneous⁵." It's probably true that a list can encourage people to follow someone else's idea of the perfect life. And also, following a fixed⁶ list of goals makes you less impulsive⁷ - your aims and wishes might change as you approach the day when you finally kick the bucket.

 

But why not at least dream of what we would like to do? Why not reach for the stars, even if we only reach the sky? Whether we want to plan it or just see what happens, we don't know what tomorrow will bring, so maybe we should live for today.

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