To Do’s: Bucket List

Ride in a hot air balloon in Turkey, stand underneath the northern lights in Norway, drive a moped through the streets of Rome, go on an African safari in Namibia…. We’ve all created a list of dreams that we long to do in our lifetime.

A “Bucket List” is basically a set of things you want to accomplish before you die. Whether you subconsciously started your bucket list at five years old, wanting to be an astronaut, or you started it a little later, desiring to earn a college degree, this is something we share as a human race. We all want our lives to mean something, to accomplish spectacular things. We all have dreams that our hearts desire!

It breaks my heart but I can’t even count the amount of people that I have encountered in my life who have had so many huge dreams for their lives and just never got around to chasing them. So many people get caught up in what we’re told life is supposed to be like. Like how you’re supposed to go to college right after high school, you’re supposed to get a job right out of college, you’re supposed to get a car and a house and a retirement fund right after you get this job, you’re supposed to settle down and get married and have kids while you’re young because why wait?

But I need to tell yall that these are all suggestions, not requirements! You are 100% allowed to live your life however you want to live it because it’s YOUR life, no one else’s.

Okay, getting off topic a bit, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my bucket list. Yes, I have a complete list of about five hundred million things I want experience in life (give or take a few thousand!). But I am incredibly selective of things that I put on my actual bucket list. I only include things that have deeply spoken to my soul; things that I would be completely heartbroken if I got to the end of my life and looked back to see that I never accomplished them.

As I landed in London after 29 hours of traveling, I was filled with an overwhelming excitement, a little bit of fear of not knowing what this European adventure would entail, but also a little bit of sadness. Sad because I started thinking about my bucket list. It has been on my bucket list to solo backpack through Europe since I started college in 2013. This is something that I’ve dreamed of for over seven years, so why should I be sad?

As I was sitting on the train to Luton airport, I had my headphones in, listening to my music on shuffle, and the first song that came on was “I See the Light” from Tangled. Rapunzel is my absolute favorite Disney princess and Tangled is one of my favorite Disney movies (yes, I am a total Disney nerd, not ashamed!). If you haven’t seen Tangled, first off, stop whatever you’re doing right now and go watch it! But second off, if you don’t like spoilers, skip this paragraph because I’m going to ruin it for you. Tangled is about a princess who was kidnapped when she was a baby and trapped in a tower with an evil witch who used Rapunzel for her hair’s magical healing powers (super creepy and sad, right?). However, to celebrate the princess, the kingdom would release floating lanterns every year on her birthday, hoping that she might one day return. After watching the lanterns every single year, Rapunzel just knew they were meant for her. Her only dream in her entire life was to go to see the “floating lights”. Fast forward a bit, a guy breaks into her tower, then later agrees to take her to see the lanterns. After she leaves her tower, you see Rapunzel in her most genuine and excited stage to fulfil her life dream, but soon after that, you also see her completely afraid and almost heartbroken because first off, she’s terrified the lanterns aren’t going to be everything she’s expecting. But she also doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do after she sees them. It’s the only thing she’s really ever dreamed of in life and she’s terrified for what she has to look forward to once she accomplishes that dream. Flynn, calmly tells her that now she just has to find a new dream.

I think I’ve felt every one of Rapunzel’s emotions in the past few weeks of being in Europe. Two months ago, I went on a two-week road trip with my friend Bob in Mexico. In La Paz, we got to swim with whale sharks, which has been on my bucket list for years and I literally cried tears of joy almost the entire day because it was so incredibly magical! Now, two months later, I’m knocking another adventure off my list as I backpack my way through multiple European countries. Which is insanely exciting, but also kind of scary. I’m just getting scared of what I’m going do when I finish my relatively short list of nine life goals that I have for myself before I kick the bucket?

But then I thought about it. What would be the point of having a list of things you will accomplish in your life if you never work towards actually doing them?! Bucket lists are not meant to sit on a shelf collecting dust for years, they’re meant to be accomplished. And the best part about them is that they’re not set in stone, you can always check something off, add something new, remove one that doesn’t mean as much to you anymore…

I want to be the person who finishes her bucket list over and over again and has to keep adding more things to it, because why the heck not? The world is massive and there are hundreds of millions of things we can do in it! And I want to do them all!

We are given our lives to live however we choose. Why don’t we choose to live them to the fullest, and chase our dreams every single day?! When I’m on the last day of my life, whether that’s at 35 or 95, I absolutely refuse to look back on my life, full of regret of all of the things I dreamed of doing, but never got around to doing them. We should never stop working towards our goals, which also gives us the opportunity to never stop dreaming. Living an unfulfilling life should not be an option for us. Let’s all start living the lives we have dreamed of. I can promise you, your life will be so much more fulfilling if you allow yourself to dream and then chase those dreams.

If you have a bucket list, but it’s one of those that’s been collecting dust in the back corner of your mind for a few years, start working on it! If you’ve never had one, then make one! Think of things that genuinely draw your heart to them. What is something you’ve dreamed about doing your whole life but just haven’t done yet? Life is way too short to be living a life you don’t love. There is not a single second of your life that is guaranteed, stop waiting around and expecting life to happen to you. You have to choose to start living. You have to live a life you would be completely inspired to live if you saw someone else living it.

We are only given one life, don’t waste it. Don’t watch other people around you live more fulfilling lives while you feel stuck wishing you could be chasing your dreams. Stop thinking like that! You can chase your dreams! If there’s one trip you’ve always dreamed of going on, go book that ticket; if you have a job you’ve wanted to do since you were five years old and it’s not the one you’re doing right now, go apply for it; if you want to become a published author, start writing; if you want to be an astronaut and go into space, start studying! Life is way too short to wait to chase your dreams.

When I tell people what I’m doing with my life right now, traveling and blogging, about 99.9% of people are so supportive and tell me to go for it, because they almost all say the same thing, they wish they would have done something like this when they were younger. They always wanted to travel, but they got caught up in their job or settling down or having a family (which are all amazing things, don’t get me wrong!) but they just never got to do things they wanted to. So, stop waiting! Whether you’re 18 years old or 65 years old, it is NOT TOO LATE! Please please please don’t let life pass you by. You will miss out on so many amazing and beautiful opportunities. Now, go get started on your bucket list!

Do you enjoy reading about all my travels and adventures? Would you like to help my adventures continue by supporting me financially? If you do, then please know, that would mean the world to me! To do this, you can go to my Patreon page to choose which level you would like to support me at! Thanks for your love and support and remember to make every day an adventure!

Life itself is a privilege. But to live life to the fullest- well, that is a choice

-Andy Andrews