It’s time for the bucket list lifestyle.
Ahhhh the ever present bucket list of our times, filling our feeds with aspirations and discontent :)
Who here has a social media feed filled with influencers living the dream? Perfect bodies on perfect beaches, with perfect bank balances. The 5am risers with their cold plunges, intense yoga, meditation and macro-diets all before running 10K before breakfast without breaking a sweat and pulling in six figure salaries. Telling you if you had their discipline you too could be a worthy person? The activities are great…and if that’s genuinely your lifestyle I salute you! But the message is…. Pretty darn toxic.
It pats you on the head with a smug smile like the ultimate frenemy. It pretends to be your buddy whilst pissing on the fireworks or your normality and humanness. It whispers in soft tones, look at me with my organic matcha handpicked by a guru in the picture perfect mountains of ancient Peru while you sip your instant coffee…I’m better than you.
But, I digress :) Rant over. The point is, this is not life. Life is messy. It’s wild and unpredictable and often boring. Those carefully curated feeds are indulging in more than a little fibbery. They are feeding off your insecurity like a bad boyfriend. Making you feel less than so you will want more, buy more, be more. It’s designed to make you feel rubbish so you will pay them to feel better.
And I’m kinda over it. I say that gently but believe me i mean it with the fierceness of a Yorkshire Terrier ready to body slam an Alsatian. Right here, right now lets celebrate real life. The real moments, the little pockets of joy where happiness hides In plain sight. You see I stubbornly believe that the sublime is found in the ridiculous, not in perfection, and the magic, more often than not, is nestling in the mundane. I know I’m late to the party with this one, but this shift has absolutely changed my life.
For those that are new here, 3 years ago whilst living my best life i suffered a spinal cord injury in my neck. It was quite the moment.
I am incredibly lucky that i have recovered to the point that unless you know the ‘before me’, I could easily get away with pretending it had never happened. I could claim i’m just ridiculously clumsy with two left feet and claw hands. But the reality is I am restricted. My old life is firmly in the past and future me is very different. My ‘unfortunate incident’ has left me with sketchy dance moves, a clumsiness to rival your drunk grandad, and quite the collection of unpredictable traumas. I cannot risk any impact injury. I have a visceral fear of the things that previously I built my life around. But the change this has forced me to make has been the silver lining i never could have dreamed of.
It may sound weird to say the worst moment of my life became the best. That trauma became transformative, but from the bottom of my heart I promise you it’s true. The epiphany didn’t arrive with a fanfare and glitterball. It wasn’t grandiose or the smack in the face that sets your world on fire. It was quiet but weirdly comforting. You know that feeling you get curled up on the sofa with your best friend like two hibernating burritos. It was that. It was like my whole being gave myself an inner hug and whispered without a shred of doubt that here right now… this is where it’s gonna get good. Suddenly the little moments looked glorious and shining, and what’s more they gave me such happiness that happiness itself became abundant. It really was everywhere, and had been there all along.
I had spent a lifetime chasing. Filling up space with challenges and goals and expectation. I was addicted to the ‘Big Things’, an adrenalin seeking, adventure thirsty goblin, a role that was immensely validating, but damn I if I hadn’t made it my whole identity. It was thrill seeking and glorious, I can’t lie, and I have grieved that part of my life and still do, but the truth was it wasn’t connecting or validating, it was escapism. On the other side of intense aliveness was a constant lurking feeling of discontent. I was running. Trying to find worth, not in the world but in myself.
They say that ‘if you don’t take a break, life will force you to’ well never has a truer word been said. I didn’t come to this realisation myself, I’m not that wise, the universe did it for me in spectacular style and it left me with no choice for which I will be forever grateful.
Because what I have discovered is adventure can be quiet, it can be soft. It is found in newness, in novelty and connection. It’s found in unlearning shame, living in a state of play, and facing your fears.
And this does not have to be the big stuff.
It can be the the hundreds of little things that fill your cup. It can be that solo date. Taking yourself out to that cute coffee shop you’ve been desperate to try but have no one to go with. Trying a new class you will probably suck at but know deep down you will love. Getting up at dawn to catch that sunrise you’ve been planning for the last decade, never saving anything for best and living every day likes its a special occasion. It’s embracing the ‘who the fuck does she think she is’ era.
I learned that joy seems frivolous when times are tough, but in reality it’s what gets us through. Joy is a non-negotiable, its survival. Joy is what feeds our resilience and gives us the strength to get through challenges and it is not found in the occasional big things, its found in the small moments and small wins that we can find everywhere. And that is where the everyday bucket list was born. We all have restrictions, financial, responsibility, health or injury, but that doesn’t mean that adventure is inaccessible. It’s there, we just have to be creative. It’s time to reframe the Bucket List one attainable, beautiful moment at a time. Because there are so many amazing things to experience and memories to make that you can do today. It’s all within your grasp.
Remember, the small moments can still be really, really extra :)
Our time on this floating ball of rock is limited, so I implore you to do the things that make you happy. Don’t be scared to try. Make it frivolous and ridiculous, challenge your insecurity. Do it wild, do it messy, do it unrestrained. Share your joy with all its snotty laughter and red faced, hot tears of hilarity, because its never ugly. It’s beautiful and its contagious! Do it for the plot and do it to laugh from the bottom of your jiggly belly.
Life is not meant to look perfect it’s meant to be felt. So lets build a normal, beautiful, joyful, hilarious life we dont have to take a holiday from. If you build a great foundation, the big stuff will come, and if for some reason it doesn’t? Then wow… what a beautiful life you have built anyway.
The everyday Bucket List starts here.
XXX It’s Not That Serious XXX