I am so much a goal-oriented person. I have made probably tens of thousands of goal lists and ‘to do’ lists throughout my life and it always gave me so much pleasure ticking things off my list as they were done.
I say this because so much about the things I do and the things I plan to do have changed. You see, it depends on how the day goes, how much I can do and what my body allows me to do. It is playing hell with my goal list and my to do lists.
This brought me to thinking about a bucket list (I think probably everyone who has received a scary health diagnosis has thought about a bucket list). When I first thought about it my reaction was that I had no bucket list and no intention of creating one. I felt that I have had so many incredible experiences in my life and I wasn’t going to create a list of things
I still want to do. THEN, I started thinking about it some more and I wasn’t so sure, so I did what I always do when I can’t seem to make a decision. I start making lists and figuring out, what next?
I first looked up definitions for both goal list and bucket list.
A goal list is a list of all the things that you want to accomplish. You might set goals per day, per week, month, or even life goals.
A bucket list is a list of the experienes or achievements that a peson hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. A bucket list is an itemized list of goals people want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket” – or die.
So really, there is no real difference except for the “or die” part. So the question is, does having a cancer diagnosis change the goals that we’ve already set? So now my thoughts about the whole bucket list thing have changed again.
I’m still making to do lists everyday but I’m finding that I’m only setting short term goals. I don’t want it to sound like I think I’m going to die immediately or even in the very near future. I think I’m doing this because I don’t know what the future will look like. How long until I have surgery? How long to recuperate? Will my body have changed a lot after
surgery and chemo? It just doesn’t seem reasonable to set long term goals that aren’t realistic.
Before my diagnosis, a few of my goals were:
- to run or walk one more five km. run. I didn’t start running until I was almost sixty and it was such a great feeling that I’m a little pissed off that this one probably isn’t going to happen. I say probably cause “you know” “it could happen”.
- finish my SHINY KIDS/SHINY PEOPLE books and share them with people. Sharing them might have been taking it to groups of people as that’s my most favorite thing to do, it might have been selling them and making some money as I would love that too but most importantly for me, sharing it with those that might gain some insight and help from them.
- have a family event that includes all of our children and grandchildren. Our family is so spread out across the country that it has always been difficult to arrange. Work schedules, medical issues, money issues, it seems we always just get together with parts of the family at a time. One of my goals has been to have all twenty-two of us together. You know, I think this one qualifies as a bucket list item!
I still have daily to do lists and goals lists – I have knitting projects that I am finishing regularly, I have a couple of sewing projects on the go at all times, I have decided that with all this free time on my hands when I am sitting without energy enough to do physical things that I will learn to read Tarot cards and I write things regularly in this journal.
Maybe goal lists and bucket lists are the same thing and only our perspective changes. For over thirty years, I have taught goal setting to people and one of the things I used to share with groups and individuals was that we need to set goals to give ourselves a reason to get up in the morning.
The good thing is that hasn’t changed and I will continue to take pleasure in ‘ticking’ off my accomplishments as I get them done. It still feels good.
