My “deathbed bucket list” (2021)
Can’t believe it’s the last week of the January, and it’s already pretty eventful month and year, both with what’s on the news and also with COVID-19 still ravaging. It sure hasn’t felt like a ‘traditional’ January/start of a new year, as what many of us were dreamily hoping for entering the new year. In particular, it’s also taken awhile for me to think about my New Years goals, resolutions, and reflections. Perhaps I’m become less attached to the whole “new year, new me” mentality — that goal-setting and reflections shouldn’t be confined to just the start of the year, especially with the intense drop off rates from the “traditional” resolutions, this sure isn’t the only nor most effective way in setting goals for oneself. Just ask the *now* struggling fitness industry whose business model basically ran on this assumption for years before the pandemic. Of course, there are a myriad of approaches to staying motivated and focused on goals, no one-size-fits-all solution. As such, I don’t intend to cover ways one can make resolutions stick. What I do want to share is my process lately, meant more to be descriptive than prescriptive.
I recently came across this video putting goal setting/one’s own passions in the context of one’s deathbed, the perennial question “what you want to do before you die” (i.e., “deathbed goals”). The idea that professional/career goals have “deadlines” and an accountability factor, whereas personal goals are mostly with ourselves and without really any hard deadlines that we can hold ourselves accountable for. And so this “deathbed bucket list” approach things kind of introduces this sense of urgency, deadline, that seems to work with motivating our modern-day society. (On a side note, probably not the best mindfulness-wise with our obsession with stress)
“No one regretted what they did at their deathbed, but rather what they didn’t do.”
Additionally, the video was intentional to mention that such “deathbed goals/bucket lists” do not have to be things like “sky diving” or something outrageously adventurous that many of us including myself would first think of when we think about these lists. It could include them, but it’s not the be-all, end-all.
So I put together some items for myself. It wasn’t easy. I was trying hard not to be super “adventurous” and trying to stay balanced in terms of all aspects of my life, both in scope (“small victories” vs lofty goals) and in horizon (tomorrow vs decades later), but at the same time also trying not to overthink/critique too much about what comes to mind so to try to reflect as accurately what’s truly on my mind.
Some initial reactions….
it all seems very short-term. And I guess it makes sense it is extremely hard to think long-term, especially “deathbed” kind of horizon. Even within this last week I’ve been an emotional rollercoaster.
Given that I tried my best to convey my most instinctive, un-edited thoughts, there was noticeable lacking with my career/professional interests or ambitions. Which, perhaps could mean nothing, but could potentially shed some light into an assessment of my current career trajectory…
In some respects, this exercise closely aligns with another one I did before, framing one’s intentions and goals as a personal declaration rather than the seemingly obligatory (and often cliche) New Years Resolutions. See this post a year ago for more.
Knowing myself I’m sure I will be mulling over (and overthinking this out of proportions) for weeks and months to come. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s still minutae (fingers crossed) compared to the number of years until my final deadline. So with that, let me know what your “deathbed bucket lists” are/any feedback or thoughts on this.