Do you have a bucket list or something similar? Do you set out all the things you wish to achieve in the next year or so? Do you enjoy doing that?
I don’t.
Planning for the future.
Well, not at the moment I don’t. I do have things I want to do. I have places I want to go, of course I do, BUT I am very aware about being caught up in this future planning and not actually doing.
As we get older, naturally we’re confronted by death and it’s not something that people are very good at talking about. We are sympathetic with those grieving, we will grieve ourselves, there is a whole host of emotions to consider, but that is not what this blog is about.
Are there things you want to achieve?
As we become more aware of death, we might experience friends and family being taken from us too soon. We are then thrust into a very strange place of inspecting our own mortality and that can then lead to asking questions such as ‘what am I doing with my life?’ or ‘what do I want to have achieved?’
We can become focused on the time we have left and, as morbid as that sounds, it’s a fact. You can’t help but think that could have been me and that’s scary.
If you have suffered many losses, if you have felt consumed with grief and all that it brings, it is totally understandable if you become a little fixated with death or making sure that time is not running out for you. But it’s so exhausting, isn’t it?
Personally, I don’t want to spend my time constantly focusing on all the things I want to fit in before I die. I don’t want to feel like time is running out or that feeling of who knows how long I’ve got.
I want to live.
What can you appreciate right now?
I want to look around me right here and right now and appreciate what and who surrounds me.
I want to plan things based on the face that I’d love to do them as the person I am now, not because it’s an exercise in ticking off the bucket list.
I want to look at the next month and work out how I can get the most, the best out of those days. Even the next week if that’s easier.
And if life is particularly tough for you right now, maybe it’s time to ask for some help to get some support to help you focus on the immediate but at the same time find some glimmers of hope for the future.
I want to live my life.
