And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun.
ECCLESIASTES 2:11 DOUAY-RHEIMS
A bucket list is usually a list of places and adventures a person wants to visit and do before kicking the bucket. When I was in my twenties, I was keen on the bucket list mentality. I decided that I wanted to do things like run a marathon, thru hike the Appalachian Trail, learn to surf, go skydiving, and see the Great Pyramids. Most of these bucket list ideas came from the pages of Outside magazine. The reality is that I spent more time reading the magazine than doing any adventures.
I did do one thing on my bucket list of adventures. I went to West Virginia to do some whitewater rafting. I would end up doing this twice. Two times was enough. I never went on that particular adventure again. I imagined it was going to be more fun than it turned out to be. The reality is that I enjoyed one of those fake white water rides at an amusement park like Dollywood more than the real thing.
Nobody ever considers amusement parks as bucket list items, but they should. Those parks are safer and cheaper and give you the same thrills minus the misery of traveling on foot and sleeping on the ground. At my present age, I don't care to even visit amusement parks. I burned my bucket list by the time I exited my twenties.
I replaced my bucket list with a reading list of armchair adventures. I have found that I would rather read about someone else's adventures than have my own. This is why I still liked reading Outside magazine even though I never went anywhere. You can go anywhere with a book, and I did. One of my favorite pleasures was reading Paul Theroux travel books. I discovered Theroux through the magazine.
Bucket lists are vanities. They are a way of fooling ourselves into thinking we are living authentic experiences. The reality is that life is 90% boredom punctuated by periods of intense crisis. This doesn't change on an adventure. Most adventures are just terribly boring. This is why people take books with them on vacation and read them on the beach or the back porch of their mountain cabins. What a waste of time and money.
The point of a bucket list adventure is to have fun. The problem is they sell you the surfboard when you would have more fun on a boogie board. Why would you buy the surfboard? This is where vanity creeps in. People brag about their golf games but not their mini-golf games. All bucket list adventures have this vanity aspect. They are not done for enjoyment but for bragging rights. If you tend to be humble and modest, you end up having more fun than the vain and serious.
This brings us to a similar topic which is the fantasy self. The fantasy self is what you would be with washboard abs, 3 Ph.D.'s, knowing 7 languages fluently, and being able to sword fight. We can go on and on here with the "achievements" that comprise the fantasy self, and I think we have all suffered from this fantasy self delusion at some point in our lives.
For me, I killed my fantasy self when I decluttered all my Spanish language books and learning materials. I took Spanish in high school and college and wanted to actually become fluent in the language. I still think it is a valuable skill to have living in the Western hemisphere. I was going to follow up with learning Portuguese and French which would cover my half of the globe. But I woke up one day deep into middle age and concluded that I was never going to get that done. This is because I didn't need to know Spanish along with algebra, trig, calculus, and physics. This is because I never needed to know those things one single time in my life. It has never come up. If it ever does, I will take up learning it then because somebody is going to pay me to know it and use it. Otherwise, I focus on learning to garden and do basic home repairs.
The vanity of the fantasy self comes from Aristotle and the concept of the Renaissance Man who knew many things to a high degree of excellence. The reality is that I know virtually no renaissance men at all. I just know specialists who indulge some weekend hobbies to a level of mediocrity. Right now, that weekend hobby is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But I digress. . .
I don't have a fantasy self. My role models are Jesus Christ our Lord and Saint Joseph. Neither one of them was a renaissance man. They were carpenters which means they were blue collar. I imagine their lives centered around prayer and work. This fact is why I don't care to live chasing the excellence of Aristotle. Holiness is hard enough.
Bucket lists and fantasy selves are vanities. Life is too short for such things. Go ahead and let yourself off the hook and embrace the reality that you aren't going to do these things that are not worth doing. Simplify your mind and life by disposing of this garbage. You will find relief when you do. I know I did.
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My Hate Affair with Bucket Lists
