Bucket list (according to Merriam-Webster): a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying.
The things on your bucket list are unique to you. No one lives their lives in the same way, and that's okay. But the one thing we should all do is actually do the things, whatever they may be, on our lists.
Your bucket list is not meant to be an "I'll get around to it one day" list (To-Do lists, boom roasted), it's the list that you'd pull out if your doctor told you you had just weeks to live. This is what you GENUINELY WANT TO EXPERIENCE before time runs out! Yet, this is often how is goes: 1) You think of something you really, really want to do in your lifetime 2) You put it on your list 3) You never do it.
Now take a second and think back to a time in your life. It can be during your childhood when life was carefree and tax-free, your graduation day when you closed a chapter of your life and opened a new one, or yesterday when you ate too much. Now what do you remember?
Do you remember what color socks you were wearing or what that fight started over? No, you remember the way someone made you feel or that time you faced your fear of heights and went zip lining in the Belize jungle (by you I mean me), and until you leave this Earth that is always what you'll remember from that day. There is no time for excuses— the "I'm too young" one is especially not a valid one.
After asking and surveying people of all ages, here are real things people 25 YEARS OLD AND YOUNGER have already crossed off :
✔️Swim with Dolphins
✔️Climb a mountain
✔️Travel to Greece
Image Catalog on Flickr
✔️A hot air balloon ride in Turkey
✔️African safari
Presidio of Monterey: DLIFLC & USAG on Flickr
✔️Run a Spartan Race
✔️Make a time capsule
✔️Meet Eli Manning
✔️Eat a Rainbow Bagel from The Bagel Store in NYC
✔️Get a tattoo
✔️Dive the Great Barrier Reef
✔️Visit Machu Picchu, one of the seven wonders of the world
✔️Ride a Gondola in Venice
✔️Climb a mountain
✔️Adopt a dog from the pound on death row
✔️Eat In N Out Burger
✔️Sky dive
✔️Learn another language
✔️Ski in Colorado
✔️See a European Football match
✔️Have my art shown in a gallery
✔️Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
✔️See a Broadway show
✔️Sing the song 'Don't Stop Believin' for karaoke in front of strangers
Personally, I try to live my life with the objective of having no regrets. When I am old and sitting on my death bed, surrounded by my dogs, I don't want to have any "what if" or "I wish I had" thoughts. Basically, I don't want to see a bucket list with nothing crossed off.
So in sum, ACTUALLY do the things on your bucket list. Now is the time to jump off that bridge because your friend did it. Get out your mini golf eraser-less pencils; it's time to check things off!
Life is short. That phrase can be taken in one of two ways: the overused cliché expression that hangs on a canvas in your dorm room...or as the truth. As you get older, days speed up, the insignificant details fade, and people come and go, but the things that stay with you forever are your memories. Life is about filling "the bucket" up, not waiting to kick it over.