My before I die list
b4idielist.com
This is not a bucket list site. Until today, I never knew why I never liked that old English idiom, “Kick the Bucket”. The 2007 movie, “The bucket list” popularized the bucket list, but it did not capture the original meaning. I discovered there are several theories as to the origin of the phrase, but the most plausible to me is from John Badcock’s slang dictionary of 1823.
The explanation is given in 1800’s wording, is, that, “One Bolsover having hung himself from a beam, while standing on a pail or bucket, kicked this vessel away in order to pry into futurity and it was all UP with him from that moment: Finis. In other words, a man was standing on a bucket, with a noose around his neck, tied to a beam, and he “kicked the bucket” over, committing suicide.
That is not the kind of list I made in 1999. And while I call it a “before I die list”, it’s not about dying. My list is about living. Creating a plan and living with a plan to do things before you die. Things on a list that have meaning and significance and forethought. My “before I die list” is experiencing fun and exciting things I choose to do, not hanging in a noose after kicking the bucket from under my feet.
The back story. There are many sections on this website that are part of “the back story”. What are they? Well there the back story of what you’re reading. Usually they are my experiences and stories that are taken from my journal and memory. The back story to this entire site started in 2003 when I bought the domains, Set up a website and started making my list. In 1999 my father died at the age of 60 from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). All of his brothers died before the age of 60. I was almost 40 at the time, and decided that I wasn’t going spend the prime of my life looking forward to retirement, because many of the men in my family didn’t.
And since my first big trip in 1984, I discovered I love to travel and experience things. Even though I made loose plans before that time, (one was to visit all 50 states) I actually made a fomal list with the title TO DO BEFORE I DIE and started actively pursuing my experiences. During the 2020 pandemic, my wife and I visited Iguazu Falls with a stopover in Bogotá Columbia, San Paulo Brazil and beautiful Rio de Janeiro. While we were outside of the country president Trump closed the borders for certain people entering from outside the USA. For the remainder 2020 we focused on things in the United States, but we were still hampered. I had planned to go on a motorcycle trip through Patagonia in the fall of 2020, but because the Chilean and Argentinian governments were in hard lockdown, it just wasn’t possible. Plan B was Morocco, which wasn’t hit particularly hard, allowed tourism and was on the list for a motorcycle trip. You can read more about it here. The bottom line? No matter what’s going on in the world, or in your hometown, you should still have your list, modify as necessary, and execute. I told a friend who was going with us to Patagonia, and decided not to go, mostly because it was on motorcycles: “you’re afraid of dying and I’m afraid of not living”. Like I said earlier about the bucket, I choose to live my life. And while I may not be rich in retirement I hope to have lived a full life.
From the book, “Think like a Monk”.
To be before I die concept.
This site it is my work in progress; like my life. I created this and set it up so I can run it on a “stand alone” PC, so when the cloud fails, the servers crash, I will still have this information. I regularly create a local backup and a PDF of the entire site. Maybe some day I will print that. Bind it. Call it a book. A life history.
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you will fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. –Jim Rohn. I would add, “not much except seperate you and your money”. The truth is, the “they” are many people. They, your employer, has a plan to exact as much time from you in exchange for as little money as possible. They, the government, has plans to extract as much money from you as they can. Don’t forget, you exchange your time for money, so taxes you pay, represent an extraction of your time. In the context of work, my dad often said “time is money”. And we seldom have enough of either. Lost time is never found again, to plan your time. Plan the time you have b4youdie.
Chat GPT re-wrote: Jim Rohn once said that if you do not create your own life plan, then you are likely to fall into someone else’s plan, and what they have in store for you may not be much. In fact, they may only have plans to separate you from your money. The reality is that there are many of these “they” out there. For instance, your employer may have a plan to exploit your time in exchange for meager pay. The government may also have plans to siphon as much money from you as possible. It’s important to remember that you trade your time for money, and the taxes you pay are a deduction from the time you’ve spent earning that money. As my father often says, “time is money,” and it seems that we never have enough of either. Once time is lost, it’s gone forever. That’s why it’s essential to plan your time and make the most of it while you still can. So, plan the time you have before it’s too late.