Bucket lists realistic or wishful thinking?

I think it can be both; a realistic short term goal, and a place for wishful thinking.

There are places I would like to go, and a few things I would like to accomplish, but if for any unforeseen reason I didn't accomplish any of these I would not have any regrets.

My husband and I have the opposite.
We have a list of all the things we never want to do again, and all the places we never want to visit again.
By mutual agreement, top of the list is Legoland.

A bucket list must never be limited by what you can do or have time to do but is all about what you want to do. So make the list as long and as adventurous as you like and then just go for it.

It was one of the saddest, most depressing conversations I'd ever heard.

A relative had worked out how many years of holidays she likely had left in her life - and the places she wanted to visit.

OK, it doesn't hurt to have plans, but to just tick things off a list like that seems joyless. It's like a countdown to death.

I think it’s healthy to have things to aim for and look forward to. It’s certainly better than sitting around watching TV, waiting to die as some older people seem to do.

I started my bucket list when I was about 5 years old. I was reading when I was about 3 and devoured books of all kinds. One of those irritating (to a child) grown ups came for a meeting with my mother and talked down to me as that type of person does and said Oh , are you reading a nice book about going to the seaside? Mummy might take you there in the summer. My mother told me later that I sat and looked at her in silence for a minute and then said " Oh no. I am going to Ulan Bator when I grow up. That is in outer mongolia you know" Picked up my book and wandered off! The family never let me forget that. So havent actually been there so far. But I have lived in Portugal and Syria. Travelled through Roumania, bulgaria and down to Istanbul and back via venice, camping. Visited the Lippizanas in the spanish riding school in Vienna. I worked in communication for an airline so that I could get cheap travel and visited all over the continent and to Thailand and Iceland etc. In Portugal I sang professionally with the Gulbenkian Choir in Lisbon. Never had loads of money to travel, but got jobs that let me move about and meet people and would rather go camping or do cheap b and b's which allowed me to travel to more places and go on local buses etc so you actually meet the people and eat the same things and not in a hotel where you may get really good food , but usually international not the local menus. So I have tried to see something of the world. Like everyone it has not all been plain sailing. I have had cancer twice , been divorced and struggling to make ends meet. But I then met my second husband Brian who was a wonderful man. We never had a lot of money but shared our passions and had an old yacht and sailed all the west coast of Britian and round island and up in the outer hebrides. Sadly he died 4 years ago, and now due to health reasons I am having to sell my house and go for a ground floor flat. Dealing with moving in covid times is difficult. Havent been able to have anyone to help me and it has been hard work and saddening to try and sort through 20 years of life here and leave my garden. so my list at the moment is to be able to go to our special place at the top of Swaledale and sit there without a mask on. To be able to travel to see my grandson and all my family and to be able to hug and kiss them. To be able to meet up with my lovely friend who I have known since I was two. To be able to sing in the Swaledale Festival in the choir. So I am so glad I have done lots of things and would still like to go to the Galapagos Islands and Madagascar, but the real joy and what matters is to be able to meet the people I love and care about. So I will look forward to my second vaccination and the hopes that soon I can meet them all again. It is over 10 months since I have seen my little grandson or anyone as I have had to be shielding so that is the absolute bucket list. But as a gardener , you know you need several buckets to use in the garden so I am sure I could do another totally different bucket - go on desert island discs for example as I have been listening to it for more than 50 years!!!

I really struggle to think of anything to go into my ‘bucket’. I travelled when I was young and single and now can’t think of anywhere that I’d rather be than here on the farm ( infact I get stressed if I have to be away from it for more than a couple of days). I’m not into adventures as such, nor material things that I yearn to own. The only 2 things that I think I’d have loved to have done is to raise an baby orphan elephant or orangutan!! I once saw a program about orphan baby elephants and the carer would bed down alongside the little elephant at night as apparently they can’t sleep alone. I’d love to cuddle an elephant all night! I don’t suppose it’ll ever happen now!

Thank you B9exchange and Simtib. Yes, maybe I will get there one day, but DH has always been adamant it won’t be with him! Maybe I can find a friend to go with me. It does sound magical! My dad was in India for several years before WW2, so I think that’s another reason I’d like to go there. I can dream ......!

honeyrose Yes the Taj Mahal was impressive but it is tourist not India. If you go make sure you visit Varanasi. Just sit on the steps looking out on the Ganges and watch all of life going on in front of you. Also Orchha is well worth going to. Which between the two.

honeyrose don't give up hope, I can't stand spices or Indian food, but we stayed in a nearby hotel to see the Taj Mahal and it was magical. The hotel, as many of them do, had an international restaurant, with traditional English dishes amongst others. Drinks in the garden watching the sunset over the Taj, turning it pink, then up early for a sunrise tour, it does take your breath away. It is so beautiful, you can go inside, but no photos are allowed, which is why you never see them of the interior.

I don't have a bucket list as such, but when we come back from one place, we start planning the next - until last year! We just got back from Antarctica in the nick of time.

Sadly I already feel that I’m over the bucket list stage. I’m not that old yet nor I have any particular affliction. DH tells me off, he’s still got a to do list which is serious about. The only thing I promised myself was getting a dog once I retired, so that’s what’s left on my bucket list.

I’m not keen on the term “bucket list”. It just seems a bit - final, somehow, even though I know I’m not going to live forever. My DH uses the term and his bucket list thing was to go through the Canadian Rockies by train, which we did a few years ago and it was wonderful. He’s not an ambitious man - just wants his health, happy family life and a few luxuries now and then. I understand his thinking. My desire was always to see the Taj Mahal, but DH won’t go with me because of the poverty of India and he doesn’t like the food. I must admit, although i’d like to see the Taj Mahal, the idea of possibly getting Deli Belly and the pollution in India is enough to put me off, although i’ve not given up the idea altogether. Maybe I’m looking at the negatives through his eyes. I may find a friend to go with me - when travelling is safer (whenever that may be!).

No great ‘bucket list’ here, more a project on the go, kitchen done last year, back garden landscaping this one. I’ve used it for veg growing the last two years since we returned from France, now I have an allotment, apart from an ordered greenhouse, time for something else. I’m looking at perennial shrubs, grasses with bulbs and annuals in the gaps, my first venture into non veg, I saw this on a site today, on my list now

Just a joke Gagajo.
I, too, am content with my life, so I know what you mean. Contentment is a good place to be.

grandmajet

Get a bigger bucket, Gagajo!

I just think I don't demand a lot from life grandmajet.

I always wanted to work overseas. I've done that 3 times now.

I wanted a grandchild. I am lucky enough to have one that I adore.

I wanted a house of my own, no man involved. Have that.

Cat. Got 2.

I would like to be able to lose my unhealthy fat, but I suspect that is more of a skip list than a bucket. I've done it many times, but it always creeps back on. I am not sure it is achieveable.

I just have a list of places I’d like to visit.
I once had a bucket list with things to do with Segway, rock climbing, abseiling, zip wire on. It was OK but when it got down to parachute jump, I realised I really didn’t want to do it!

I wonder if anyone’s last thought was “I never did get to swim with Dolphins”.
I suppose some people need a list to galvanise them into action.
I can’t think that there is anything I would regret not doing or seeing.

Not many things on my bucket list. I would like to see Gorillas and Orangutangs in the wild. Was going to Rwanda last year to see the Gorillas but of course that came to a halt. Not sure when it will be OK to travel there or to Borneo for the orangutangs.

Well actually I have two mental lists. The first is my sensible list and my second is my 'if I win the lottery' list.

Me too, vampirequeen but even some on my sensible list will have to go by the wayside now, I think.

It would help, too, if I did the lottery

Get a bigger bucket, Gagajo!

I used to have a small bucket list, but I've done the things on it. What now?

I’m not keen on the term ‘bucket list’ either, as I don’t like the thought of emptying the bucket! Or kicking it over while it’s still nearly full.

I don't like the term 'bucket list' as are you going to feel disappointed when those things you have listed don't happen?

I have found that good things come along without me wishing for them and I don't have to tick them off as they were a surprise.

I don`t have a wish list of things to do.
But i do wish covid would sod off so we can all be with our family and friends etc.
That would be heaven.

Call it what you like , it’s good to have something to look forward to doing surely ? PIt will differ for all of us what ‘it’ may be .