I don’t think there is a way to say this without sounding a cheesy.

I made a bucket list…

A cancer patient made a bucket list, how original.

So why now? What prompted this cliche?

A single article: 91 year old’s bucket list journey

I read the initial article as it circulated social media a few months ago. It’s about a woman diagnosed with Uterine Cancer at age 90. She decided to skip chemo and go travel to do all of things she has always imagined doing in her lifetime. As you may see, she did a whole heck of a lot in the span of a year, probably more than most do in their lifetimes.

No one wants to live out their days hooked up to IV poison. At 90 years old I would have said “eff it” too and just let everything else take its course.

Admittedly I was jealous of Norma. If it was evident that I would meet my maker soon, I would want to do the same. The reality is that I’m in my 20’s, there is a lot of life to be had, and no indication that I’ll be kicking the bucket anytime soon (that’s a good thing). I still need to work full time and plan for the future.

Norma’s adventure got me thinking about purpose and fulfillment. Am I doing everything I want to live a purposeful life? What do I want to do that I haven’t done yet? What can I do that will push my own boundaries? As I spun through the “I really want to ______” rolodex of my mind I became overwhelmed. Can I do what I need to do? Will I have the resources? Will I feel well enough?

Is there enough time?

And there I went again, staring my mortality in the face.

It happens every now and again. The thought of my own mortality isn’t persistent. Sure it’s intrusive, but not a daily thing. For me, it doesn’t act as these ongoing big, dramatic, moments. When I go to bed at night I don’t think to myself “hope I wake up tomorrow!” I think “my phone just indicated that I need to wake up for work in four hours and twenty-one minutes, yikes.”

The reality is that intrusive thoughts will visit you periodically and you have to sit with the discomfort and find productive ways to transform it.

The grim realities of disease can either drag you down or they can motivate you (although truthfully it’s a little of column A and a little of column B.) In this case, I sat with these strong feelings and allowed it to challenge my pattern of thinking.

I had the great privilege of speaking with Zach Mercurio, writer and educator recently. Zach writes and speaks openly about awakening one’s purpose. He has published some great articles in the Huffington Post as well as on his blog, Purpose Speaks. His message is mainly “why does this matter?”, more specifically “why does what I’m doing matter right now?”

Coming down from the energy of the Izzy Gala, combined with speaking to Zach on this topic, and being super peanut-butter-and-jealous of Norma, my bucket list was born. It was a way to reconcile the nagging thought that time could be* running out.

*I purposely said “could be” instead of “is” because no one knows when their story eneds. For all I know, I can live with cancer for 10’s of years or a freak sinkhole could form around my bed and I could fall in and die without warning (for real THIS HAPPENED in Florida in 2013). I’m not Nostradamus therefore I have no business agonizing over how much time I ultimately have on this earth. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is what I’m doing right now.

So back to the bucket list. Or perhaps a more appropriate name would just be: Joyful Opportunities. A collection of low stress, high intrinsic reward ideas to pepper into my daily life as I see fit.

You may be wondering: “Jess, what’s are these “joyful opportunities” you speak of?!”

I’ve opted to keep my list to myself for a few reasons, although I will share a few examples to demonstrate my pattern of thinking. First, it’s highly personal and although my list is pretty vanilla, I’m not inviting others to weigh in on what I find meaningful to me. Secondly, this should be a low-pressure endeavor. By putting such goals in a public forum I may feel more stress to have to achieve them. These joyful opportunities are to serve as rainbow sprinkles on an already fulfilling life, not check boxes on a to-do list. I’d rather keep the full list between me and the pages of my journal.

(P.S. Steph Frazitta, if you’re reading this, my list lives in the fresh pages of the new journal you gifted to me. I couldn’t think of a better home for it.)

I will say that I found my goals falling into three overarching themes: 1.) Travel, 2.) Things I want to create, 3.) Things I want to do for others. (and as a byproduct of all themes, 4.) Things I want to eat, nom nom nom.)

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I acknowledge that I won’t do everything that I wrote in my journal but I was fairly realistic and simple with the experiences I hope to have, so much of it is doable. One example that I am willing to share is something I hope to do this weekend:

•  Bake a lattice top apple pie from scratch.

I chose this experience because it’s one of those things that “matters now”. Baking to me is calming, low-stress, productive, and requires you to be in the moment. It allows me to share with others and quietly create something beautiful (hopefully) and delicious (hopefully).

Sure I have more adventurous experiences on my list and pie might sound boring but again it is an intentional endeavor and matters to me in this moment.

I’ll end on a spoiler alert: sky diving, bungee jumping, and freebasing did not make the list. Anyone who knows me should not be shocked by this.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone! Be sure to fit in moments for yourself where the joy to stress ratio isn’t too skewed in the stress direction.