thankful thursday - lists

I have a confession. I am a list-maker. I make a list of things I have to do,  things to take on vacation,  books to read, restaurants to try, things to buy with separate lists for each store, places I want to visit, and the list goes on and on.

I've written about this before.  50 Shades of Summer is a list of 50 things I did one summer and Amazing Arizona... 100 Things  is a list of places to see or things to do in Arizona that I completed during our state's centennial celebration.

I recently read The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski. It's a quick, fun read about a woman who is in a car accident and her passenger dies, leaving behind a list - "20 Things to Do by My 25th Birthday." The tasks are varied - run a 5K, throw away my scale, change someone's life, etc. To work through her guilt (although the accident was not her fault), the woman takes over the list completing the remaining 18 tasks before the deadline.

Hmmmm. That's an intriguing idea - completing someone else's list for them. And not just any list - their Bucket List. The things on a Bucket List are meaningful to that person. The tasks might be challenging or learning something new or visiting someplace or about a relationship. In other words, they are personal to the person making the list.

I thought about my Bucket List. I started it when I was in my 40's with about a half dozen tasks. I have added to it over time and quite honestly, I think there are more things on it than I could do in my lifetime. But it's good to have goals and I get great satisfaction from crossing something off the list.

Some are fairly straight forward and not too difficult like:
     *  Visit all 50 states
     *  Anonymously pay for a family's meal at a restaurant - must be people I don't know

Others are adventurous like:
     *  Visit Antartica
     *  Ride in a hot air balloon

And a few are edifying like:
     *  Read through the Bible in a year
     *  Secretly give something to someone I know

What would be like for someone else to do the things on my Bucket List? For someone who is always cold, visiting Antartica could be torture, not adventure. Or they could rise to the challenge, dress very warmly, have a great adventure and learn they can do more than they think they can.

I think at some point, as the woman in the book discovered, the list would become their own. They would learn different things and feel differently about completing the tasks than I would.

I am thankful for my Bucket List. It's good to have goals and I get great satisfaction from crossing something off the list. It's okay if I add two more things the next month. It's not about completing the list as much as it is just doing the list.

And that's what the woman in the book eventually learned.