My friend Jayme Soulati recently wrote a post entitled “20 Things To Do Before I Die“, where she shared some really interesting want-to-do’s, and then asked that the meme be passed from blogger to blogger.
Gini Dietrich promptly took up the challenge by writing “The 10 Things I Want To Do Before I Die“.
Jason Konopinski then shared his “10 Things I Want To Do Before I Die“.
At first, I was reluctant to take on the challenge. I’ve never been much on making lists of what I want to do, because most of the time…I do them.
I lead a blessed life. For the most part, I do what I want, when I want, how I want to do it.
Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have responsibilities, deadlines, client expectations, a business to run and a household to maintain.
What it DOES mean is that, when I set my mind to do something, I usually do it.
So it took me some serious thinking to come up with things that are, what I call:
My Aspirations List
Not a bucket list. Not a to-do list. Not a “things to do before I die” list (although they might be difficult to do once dead…although, of course, I’m not sure about that either;)
And I like the concept of Aspirations…the act of aspiring…of breathing…of taking a breath.
So, in no particular order, here’s My Aspirations List (and yes, Jayme, it’s because you called me on it that I’m doing it:)
- Live a long and healthy life so I can experience the rich, rewarding, healthy lives of my two sons and my husband, long into the future
- Touch as many lives as possible and leave those lives a little happier, brighter, more confident and inspired than before I had the pleasure of connecting with them
Those two came easily. The following are the more “practical”, which I really had to think about.
- Hike the Camino de Santiago. When the movie “The Way” came out, it inspired me even more to one day…walk the Camino, and hike the Sedona Vortexes
- Write my book. Ahem…FINISH writing my books…plural
- Visit Finland, Land of the Midnight Sun and country of my heritage. Go for sauna (and it’s pronouned sownuh, not sawnaw:) and roll naked in the snow. I do that at home (yes, we have a good old-fashioned sauna and most of the time, lots of snow, haha!), but I want to experience Finland, snow…and beer:)
- Drink 100 year old single malt. (Yes, I stole this one from Danny Brown, from his comment over at Spin Sucks. We’re birds of a feather on this one Danny.)
- Meet Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman in person. I’ve seen them perform live more times than I can count, but I’d like to meet them, talk to them, hear their stories in person.
- Experience an Orient Express journey
- Spend one week in a silence-only environment: a retreat at which there is no speaking or sound, save for the sounds of nature.
- Collect rocks and shells from all over the place. Oh wait…I already do that:)
- Ride in a hot air balloon. I’m afraid of heights, but I will do this. It’s similar to when I went outside my comfort zone and learned to ride a motorcycle, was gifted with a bike for Mother’s Day one year, and rode with abandon for several years. Sold the bike a few years ago. It had accomplished its purpose.
- Ramp up my speaking engagements. I used to do a lot of these. When I underwent a painful 2 1/2 years of TM litigation with my clothing company (which I’ve since closed down), my speaking engagements calendar went to a hot place in a handbasket. I yearn to ramp up this love of mine again.
- Pursue my painting, sketching, jewellery design, photography and share the results with all who find it of interest
It’s not 20 or 10: it’s 13 Aspirations. And funny enough, 13′s my lucky number. How ironic is that?
Now it’s your turn. Will you share your bucket list, “things you want to do before you die” or Aspirations list below? I’d love to hear.
