A 'bucket list' has physical and mental advantages
By: By Kara Schroeder
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A 'bucket list' has physical and mental advantages
Kara Schroeder swings above the ground at the Macao Tower bungee jump.KARA SCHROEDER/CHINA DAILY
A "bucket list" is a personal list of goals and activities someone wants to accomplish before the end of their life. Fortunately, I've been able to check off quite a lot of mine, an achievement that many people I know never get the opportunity to do.
While most of us don't like to ponder our mortality, the hard fact is that it will come eventually. After the loss of several loved ones, I decided to make my bucket list so that, when I reflect on my life, I'll smile and know that I grabbed every chance at happiness that I could.
Some of the things on my bucket list that I've achieved — hiking the Plank Road in the Sky on Mount Huashan in Shaanxi province; diving off the highest platform of 15 meters (50 feet) into the sea at Ariel's Point in Boracay, the Philippines; doing the world's highest commercial bungee jump at 233 meters off Macao Tower in the Macao Special Administrative Region; octopus fishing in the Yellow Sea off South Korea; and much more.
The top item on my bucket list, however, is much more difficult to achieve. Being adopted from South Korea to the United States in 1976, I have been searching for my birth parents for the past several years. I can't help but worry that they may not still be living. But having this item at the top of my list urges me to keep trying and I'm planning to visit Seoul in October to continue the search.
A snapshot of her in Seoul, South Korea. KARA SCHROEDER/CHINA DAILY
When I've talked about my bucket list to others, some of the feedback I've received is that it seems "a bit morbid". Like, if you have a list, you're neurotically thinking about your death.
In October 2019, the American Heart Association published an article listing the emotional and physical benefits of keeping a bucket list. According to research, pre-planning trips or adventures has been linked to happiness and more positive cardiovascular health outcomes. A bucket list also prioritizes "breaks" in routine life and helps to spell out how you want to be remembered after you pass.
As you get older, the list may change. And that's OK. Whether it includes visiting certain countries, getting in better physical shape, buying a particular item or just spending more time with loved ones, there is no wrong way to do a bucket list. Your list can include short-term goals, once-in-a-lifetime experiences or just personal goals. It can give a boost to your motivation and force you to take breaks when you might not otherwise think of doing so.
I consider my bucket list as a way to keep my hopes and dreams alive; a north star by which I can steer my life.
Contact the writer at schroeder@chinadaily.com.cn
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I never made a bucket list, but I have done an awful lot of different things during my lifetime. Some of them can be seen if you were to open my profile. I've been all over the USA from 3 of the Hawaiian Islands to Nantucket Island, from Detroit to Dallas, from St. Chicago to Miami, from St. Louis to Palm Springs, and as Woody wrote and sang, from the redwood forests to the New York Island and so many, so very many places in between. I've attended the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where Dylan went electric, the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Tanglewood Boston Symphony Summer Concert, and the little family size Beers Family Fox Hollow Folk Festival in upstate New York.
I've toured the White House and the Capitol building, stood in awe at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial and been driven by the notorious D.C. mayor Marion Berry in his little 2-seater Mercedes to his favourite restaurant for dinner.
I've met, shaken hands and had conversations with celebrities like Princess Diana, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudear (Justin's father), Jodi Foster, Sir Michael Caine, Monty Hall (of Let's Make a Deal), Ramblin' Jack Elliott (who used to stay in my home when he had a Toronto gig). Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, I had to lift a pregnant Joan Baez over a fence at the Mariposa Folk Festival, famous woodland artist Norval Morrisseau was my client, as was Harvey Atkin (camp director Marty in the movie Meatballs and the judge in Law and Order), Johnny Winter, and many more beyond my memory.
Izzy Young gave me the keys when he went away for a weekend and had me run the New York Folklore Center in Greenwich Village and stay in his apartment above it when I was there to watch my friends Ian and Sylvia perform at the Bitter End.
And I've been elsewhere, Barbados, Jamaica, Eleuthera, Nassau, Bermuda, England, Wales, Switzerland, Spain, Gibralter, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and finally where I intend to spend the rest of my life - China. It is said that one does not know China unless they have done these three things - walked on The Great Wall, watched the Peking Opera, and eaten authentic Peking duck. I have done all three and so much more, and there really isn't anything left for me to put on a bucket list, because I am now too old and my present health makes travel extremely difficult. So much I've done, so much I've seen, so many I've met....my bucket has been filled to the brim already.
I Kicked my bucket list down the road as it paled in comparison to my barrel list that I placed adjacent to my pot, I smoke on the back burner whilst calling the kettle black with envy of the green pail that i used as a vessel to grow the pot that I store in a canister I keep in the large can, because I can
You can sure as hell go a lot of places in your mind when you're high.
yes indeed
Can you believe how gorgeous that woman is at the age of 49? My wife has not lost her beauty either.
I used to think I needed a bucket list, but discarded the idea for a more "live like you are dying" approach, especially since my wife and I both retired and moved to the country. We have lived and worked all over the world, our three children are successful and have wonderful families and we are free 9with the constraints of our health) to pretty much do as we please. And we do.
The idea of "a bucket list" of things to do in my view limits the scope of your view of the world and what you want do with the time you have in it.
Just my view
Join the club.