The Bucket List

In keeping with the theme of doing something different this year and being proactive in our lives- act rather than be acted upon- we are going to make a bucket list for 2011. We have committed to meet on New Year's Eve prepared to each place 3-4 bucket list items into the pile. Each month we will select one of the items and calendar a time to accomplish or experience that item. This will serve a few objectives, none of the least of which is simply to calendar personal/social time each month as we work to define our boundaries and put our work into its proper role in our lives. We work to live, not live to work. It is our job, not our life.

The Blog

While discussing The Best Year of My Life with friends Laurel and Camille, Laurel made a great suggestion to keep a blog throughout the year. As contributors, Laurel and Camille will also make posts pertaining to the experiment. They may undertake their own personal experiments as I have done and if they do, they may share them. Otherwise, this will be a record of our experiences this year.
I anticipate this will also be the forum through which we will continue to develop our longstanding ideas about a book. Our book idea has evolved tremendously over the past few years into many variations on a theme. I look forward to putting pen to paper- well, letters to the screen- as these ideas are developed.

The experiment.

It has been said that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result". After years of doing the same thing, bemoaning the passing of yet another year and wondering aimlessly about what the next year would bring, I have decided to try a new approach and expect a different outcome. Don't get me wrong, I have had many years pass that have been remarkable and a few year that have been downright horrid. I am looking for something very different this year- a year that exceeds expectations when no expectations are placed on it, a year where I break new personal boundaries, professional, spiritual, and all other "als". This will be a year of, well, the best year of my life!
So what will be different this year? My experimentation will include, but not be limited to, a few changes personally. The most dramatic of all will be cancelling my cable. This is a big thing because although I am not a big tv watcher, I am a big news watcher. I watch news constanlty and have found the noise of the television to be my newfound companion. The silence can be deafening at times. By cancelling my cable and having a slightly different approach I will be forced to fill my spare time with other things. Some of these things will include more personal reading, something I love to do. Personal enrichment on topics ranging from historical figures and events to religious topics to diet and nutrition. I have a few projects piled around the house that I will be working on and I can alread tell some are evolving into great gift ideas for next year.
By trying something different this next year I hope the result will be different. I know the result will be different because although the year may, on paper, be the same as all other years, I will be different. I will see the world differently this year and, as a result, will find that this will be The Best Year of My life.