Hi all. Enjoy this excerpt. There are some surprises.
The excerpt:
The two key discussions of retirement are how you will spend your time, and finances. Health of course is a factor too, but this might be a bit harder to control, unless you can tell your body to behave. For example I have tried telling my bladder that it is sustainable to take a highway car trip of more than a half hour without having to urgently lookout for a McDonalds. But it doesn’t always listen.
So dealing with activities, what are some decent ways of spending your time? I suppose whatever works for you. People talk about that bucket list. For that matter why is it called a bucket list? One theory is relating to execution. It goes back a couple of centuries when victims about to be hung would stand on a bucket, which they could kick away when ready. Hence also, the expression “kick the bucket.” Having read that, I prefer not to call my list “bucket.” And I’m certainly not ready to kick anything of the kind.
But when I Googled “bucket list,” I got 686 million results. That’s quite a list. I doubt anyone has on his bucket list the desire to read all these results. The sites on the first couple of pages look like lists themselves, as in “The 10 most common wishes,” or “100 activities to get you started,” or if you really believe you’ll live to age 180, “1001 things to put on your bucket list.”
They go all over the place. Some are outright risky, like bungee jumping. Or riding in a hot-air balloon. Or riding on a mechanical bull. These should be rightly labelled “Short-list bucket list.” There should be a disclaimer saying, “Is your will up to date?” Not for me, thank you very much.
Others are weird, like visiting an elephant sanctuary. I suppose that’s a place for retired elephants. The question then is, do retired elephants have a bucket list? Maybe they do. And maybe one suggestion for retired elephants is, visit humans in a retirement home. “Hello, Mr. Rosenberg. Elmer is here to visit you. He says he knows you from your days at the circus.” Question is, does Rosenberg also remember Elmer?
Then there are some items worth looking into that are safer, easy, and maybe even sustainable, which I never thought would be bucket-list items.
One is embracing your dark side. This one scares me a bit. When I hear dark side, some macabre thoughts come to mind; I visualize Lizzy Borden, hatchet in hand, paying a visit to her parents. Or I see Dracula the Impaler trimming some tree branches. Or even more intense, I see someone ordering a pizza with double anchovies. No, I’m not going there.
One I do like is to say something you always wanted to say but never dared to say. Easy. I’m strongly considering next time I’m in an Italian restaurant to go over to the server offering to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on people’s dishes, and telling said server, “This cheese wreaks. I cannot think of a viler odour on the planet. Toss it all into a radioactive-proof container and bury it ten feet deep. And when you’re done, bring me another order of garlic bread.”
And don’t anybody say this item might also qualify as an embrace-your-dark-side item. I’m just trying to save the planet.
So as far as bucket lists go, you can select your websites from the 686 million, I’ll select mine.
End of excerpt
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