Not a bucket list bucket list....

I'm the kind of person who often thinks about all the things I'd like to experience during my lifetime. We are conditioned to consume as much as possible, travel as much as possible and fill our lives with as much as we can before our time in this world is up. We are told that by doing this we will be fulfilled and can often find ourselves comparing our lives to others. This combined with the knowledge that life is shorter than many of us would like makes us desperate to fill our lives with as much as we can so that we can feel like we are doing something with our lives and not wasting our time. The idea of putting together a bucket list (a list of things to do before you die) has become increasingly popular in our society and I have been suckered into putting together one of my own. However recently I have started to think about whether this is actually a healthy thing to do.

In creating a bucket list, are we setting ourselves up for disappointment if we are unable to complete our list?

Can we put so much pressure on completing our bucket list that we fail to truly enjoy life and the little things?

Can putting so much emphasis on completing a bucket list mean that every day life feels insignificant making us feel disappointed with daily life?

When I ponder these questions,  I find myself saying 'yes' to all of the above.

In reality, there is loads of stuff I'd like to do in life but I don't want to feel that crossing off items on my list means that I end up feeling disappointed with my day to day life. Nor do I want to miss the brilliant stuff in my daily life because I'm so preoccupied with my plans.

I want to look back on life and know that I was present in it, that I really noticed the things that matter. Now this doesn't mean that there isn't stuff I'd love to be able to do. I'd love to stay at Claridges, travel on the Orient Express, see the Northern Lights, take my children to Disneyland and go on a tropical holiday among many things but I don't want to stop ignoring the small things. With this in mind, I've decided to put a weekly post on this blog acknowledging the small but wonderful things in life. The stuff that may not seem like much but makes us feel alive and content. Things like, eating the last of a tiramisu from the dish with my husband (happened tonight after dinner) or taking a hot bath that's filled with scented oil (it feels like one of the ultimate luxuries).

I've not had many comments about this blog but as a nosey person I'd love to hear about the simple things in your life that you love.

Let's start to really appreciate the simple stuff.