Bucket lists
I just watched a video about bucket lists. From a man who is dying.
It illustrates the pressure we have put on ourselves, and each other, to live this amazing life full of adventure and excitement.
It illustrates that life is more than a tick box list where comparisons sit uncomfortably and the jagged edges of expectations and entitlement sit right alongside.
While most of us live extraordinary, ordinary lives.
Bucket lists are an interesting concept and they can place unreasonable expectations around what we want, what we believe we are entitled to and what a great life looks like.
Not to mention setting us up for endless disappointment when the pumped-up image we have in our minds does not match the experience.
And that gap is where happiness resides – the bigger the gap the less happiness exists.
I, through luck as much as anything, have never stood at the train station waiting for the last train.
What he shares seems to be a common message of those who have.
That so much of what we think matters really doesn’t when the conductor asks for our ticket.
He sums it up brilliantly at the end – ‘you care that you have never been too much of a coward to say I love you when it needed to be said’
‘You care that you said thank you more than you said please’
We live in a world that seems to be increasingly full of pleases.
As I move into the financial sector, working with people to build financial wellness, one of the things I know to be true is bucket lists put immense pressure on people’s financial plans.
Bucket lists usually cost money. Travelling is not something you do for nothing (and yes I know they are not just about travel – shall I say many activities require some kind of financial outlay)
And that money needs to come from somewhere.
As I move closer to the evening of my life and retirement looms (another article about that barnacle later) I am fascinated by the figures bandied around.
From $300k + house to ‘you need $10 million’ there is a sense of possibility coupled with dread. Discomfort intertwines with silence and burying our head in the sand. When we feel the goal is just not achievable no matter how many times we are told to reach for the stars and you will get to the moon”
I know people that are very well off and will do retirement easily and I also know people who fear they will never be able to retire but live the ‘drudgery of employment until they board the final train.’
Which makes his statement of ‘just live because you are alive’ so powerful.
Is there a magic figure? The retirement commission have certainly done a lot of work to guide us here.
However, there is something unsavoury about it all isn’t there. The idea that:
we will reach retirement
that we want to do all those things that society tells us we should, and
that we should be living our lives extraordinarily – whatever that means to you.
After 25 years of coaching there is one thing I know about money.
It is the one topic that people feel the most shame around, stay silent on, create expectations around and build comparisons.
Which is kind of ironic because I have never had a conversation with people, other than clients, about what they are worth, what they get paid, how much debt they have.
We compare based on the superficialities of what people show you to guide your thinking a particular way about their financial world.
Which is why I am excited about being involved in an industry that deals in tangibles.
That relies on reality, on honesty, on the asking of some tough questions.
Maybe just ditch the bucket list.
Just live your life because you are alive and look up.
That is what seems to make us really miss our lives.
