The Real Bucket List

As the years go by, and the body gets slower, stiffer, and weaker, the question of how I want to spend my remaining days becomes more urgent and critical. Like most of my peers (and the advertising aimed at people in my Boomer demographic) I want to do things, go places. I want to play music so well that people can't help but dance, to publish that prison book, to ride my bike along the spine of the Rockies, drive off into the sunset in a new camper van, and to see the stone towers off the beaches at Phuket. Given the consumerist cultural narrative that happiness is dependent on conditions being perfect and pleasurable -- external circumstances, in other words -- it is no surprise that this bucket list is about having things a certain way, doing things that I have always wanted to do. These things are both wonderful and ephemeral; material goodies and rich experiences are fine, but the goal of acquiring them as the sole purpose of my remaining days misses the real point of what I want to accomplish before I expire. What I want is to learn to be happy no matter what. I don't want to need to burn up fossil fuels flying around the globe or be recognized for having done art, music, or writing that makes people swoon (though all of that would be a nice by-product) in order to feel fulfilled, at home, at peace; what I want is to feel happy with my life, content that I am alive and able to drink in the beauty of every passing moment. That's the real prize, the bucket I want to kick before the curtain comes down. Just sayin, that's all.