One of my classes is starting the book Deadline by Chris Crutcher. The book follows the last year of a high schooler diagnosed with a fatal disease. The lead character keeps his condition to himself, but knowing the end is nigh, he begins to take advantage of his life. He lives–really lives. In many ways I found myself looking at the lead character as a hero. I want to help my students gain a deeper understanding of what it means to live.
So many of us take life as it is handed to us. We do the same routine crap everyday and take few chances. We have the potential to be more but we don’t have the courage to be more. Because the character in the book is faced with a literal deadline, he had nothing left to lose and screwed up the courage to say and be and do more. In that sense a bucket list is an implicit promise to yourself to do more.
I’m not going to share my entire bucket list, because I don’t have one. Here are some things I want for myself:
- Do a reading of my award-winning novel (that I haven’t written) at a writing conference
- Go to Europe.
- Swim in an Ocean I’ve never seen before.
- Create a scholarship fund
- Own a second home
- Start in one more semi-pro football game
Thats just a peak. The real leap is taking one of those items and turning it into a plan. A bucket list isn’t something you leave lying around in the hopes the lottery takes you to your goal. A bucket list needs to be a resolution to accomplish a goal. Build backwards from the goal. Pick something you want and is in reach. Walk it back to the point where you recognize the first step, last step, and all steps in between.
Deadline is about living and living is something all of us deserve to do. We just gotta find the courage.