Bucket List

I've been chronicling my personal Health and journey with Sarcoidosis, if you've been following the posts and read some of the thoughts that went through my mind around this time last year, there was a point where I had to legitimately consider the possibility that I might die - that was before my diagnosis became more detailed and well documented.  The risk of death any time soon is minimal now at least.  The whole experience however has left me contemplating the idea of a Bucket List. 

I'm a mixture of anally retentive levels of organization and constructive chaos when it comes to planning things out in life.  I tend to focus on the small stuff more than the big stuff as my mantra has always been that the big stuff will take care of itself.  In the UK we have a saying that epitomizes this, quite aptly put: "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" - I don't just apply this to finance though, I apply it to pretty much everything in life.  So understandably you can imagine every attempt prior to this of creating a Bucket List and actually completing it ended in failure.

I've never been one to plan out my whole life; my university was actually picked at random, I had no intention of going to it.  I had spaces to fill on my UCAS form so I filled them and thought nothing of it.  In the end I fell in love with the University and with London and there was no doubt in my mind that was where I would go.  All things considered it was one of the best decisions of my life.  My college and my high school too just sort of happened, those weren't decisions I dwelt on for very long.

Having never been one to plan out my whole life, the concept of a Bucket List is something I struggle with in that the whole point of creating one isn't to fill it with trivial things or mundane tasks, but to fill it with big things, monumental experiences, once in a lifetime achievements.  The problem is I don't have much aspirations when it comes to any of those things.  Now you can dismiss that as a by product of having struggled with depression, you could dismiss it as millennial lethargy with or apathy for societal expectations, you could dismiss it as narrow-mindedness and say I simply lack vision, but for me personally I would simply say that all I have ever wanted in life was to be happy and most of the time that's not that hard for me to achieve.

Beyond these excuses for dismissing most of what society expects you to put on this list, there are many cliché inclusions that I have already achieved.  I am a published author - three times over; I have learned a second language to the point where I can have a conversation in it [Spanish] albeit at a basic level - I don't think I can in practice learn much more without immersion or access to a native speaker for regular interaction.  I have a degree, I have the education many people aspire to attain and thanks to living in the UK I haven't had to pay for any of it out of my own pocket.  I have an investment portfolio that I hope to grow although with no reliable income at present that's a bit difficult. 

My immediate concerns are either short term or things which I can't consciously control like the desire to improve my health - you can't really do anything to get rid of Sarcoidosis, and going back onto steroids wouldn't be a good idea, and chemotherapy would cause more problems than it would fix.  Getting a job is not something I am physically or mentally ready to do so that's also ruled out.  Travelling the world as forms the centre of many peoples' Bucket Lists again is out of the question right now for practical reasons, even if I felt up to it mentally and physically, I don't think I would be allowed to take my tablets with me to many of the countries I would like to visit - that and if anything happened to me and I had to use healthcare in another country I am not confident that would end well given most doctors here don't seem to know what Sarcoidosis is and the UK's healthcare system [not without its faults] is one of the most advanced in the world relatively speaking.

That leaves me with the question, what else should you put on a Bucket List?