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For 30 years, I didn’t have any life list ideas. Initially, that was okay.

I managed a few exciting excursions when I was a Navy sailor or college student. However, once I started day-to-day adulting, adventures trickled down to zero.

One day not too long ago, I spiraled into a dark place with no sugar and wondered, what have I done that is worthwhile, exciting, or at the very least, adrenaline-inducing?

The pitiful answer: nothing.

I had a splash of money and explored some places but, those adventures had trickled down to nada.

I’m living in the twenty-first century where YOLO isn’t a misspelled word. It’s misspelled with purpose. 

We all make bad judgments and mistakes. That’s not what matters. How do you respond after you make a mistake? That’s the key.

Darius Foroux

I took Taylor Swift’s advice, shook it off, and decided to do something about it. As a type-A American living in suburbia, I knew what I needed, a list!

What the bucket is a life list?

I could have made a bucket list. I didn’t.

A bucket list is about death. As in, I want to do X before I die. A morbid obsession with death isn’t my thing. As a DIY optimist, I prefer to ponder a lifetime of activities.

Instead of developing a bucket list for when I kick the bucket, I went with the less talked, tweeted, and pinned, life list.

A bucket list may test your courage, whereas a life list will test your perseverance.

Jocelyn Soriano

A Date with a List

Having a life list with a date is like having ice cream with a cone. It’s better than diving face-first into a gallon of creamed confectionary and risking facial frostbite.

A list of items is fine. Putting them on digital paper, instead of allowing them to run amuck in my head, is preferred.

But, there is a reason syllabuses have due dates, planes have schedules, and loans are measured by years, not tears. A date is how a list becomes sticky and leverages human’s never-ending tendency to procrastinate.

Even if I’m the only one who sets a date, the list that started casual and cute becomes an intensive timeline where the invisible eye of Mordor is always watching.

A Listed Example

When I started with the life list, I wrote down some items. The only rule was that it had to be interesting for who I am, not who I want to be.

There are times when I want to be something that I’m not. As much as I want to be a crafty scrapbooker or a master chef or a brilliant astronaut, I like the idea, and bragging rights, more than the follow-through.

So, if I’m planning and paying for an excursion, I have to be skydiving sure that it’s interesting.

Turns out, there weren’t many items. Like any millennial, I asked Dr. Google if she had some suggestions, and she did. I went through a barrage of lists, collected the shiniest, and discarded the dullest.

This is the current life list ideas I plan to accomplish by December 2035. It contains 36 escapades:

🐼 Visit China & Tibet

🌈 Finish the Color Run

🎁 Take a Magical Mystery Tour

✌ Solar Eclipse – April 8, 2024

🌍 Visit the United Kingdom

🏰 Sleep in a castle

🌴 Tour the Galapagos

🤿 Embark on a Scuba Trip

👙 Explore Great Barrier Reef

🔥 Survive Burning Man

🗺 Take a National Park Road Trip

🌌 See the northern lights

🥇 Go to the Olympics in 2028

🥶 Travel to Antarctica

🗽 Go to New York

🏙 Explore Washington DC

✈ Visit the Taj Mahal

⛵ Become a brief crew member of The Maiden Factor

🧭 Explore the pyramids

🚢 Ante up for a cruise around the world

🧳 Pack my bags for a random location

🛫 Fly first class

🌳 Spend the night in a luxe treehouse

🏮 Go to a floating lantern festival

💬 Take an immersive French class

🤷‍♀️ Skinnydip

🔘 Try zorbing

💆‍♀️ Have a couples massage

🎶 Learn to pole dance

📖 Write adventure book

💧 Sightsee Niagara Falls

🚀 Survive Space Camp

🧘‍♀️ Participate in a mediation retreat (scheduled for Dec 2021)

😶 Spend a day in silence (2021)

📝 Write a manifesto (2021)

💨 Complete Tough Mudder (2021)

Once I had gathered the items and the words settled in, I had a mini panic attack. My mind raced to figure out the money and time needed to accomplish such a list.

After I talked myself away from a paper bag I couldn’t find, I realized even if I was unable to accomplish everything, it’s more than nothing.

More is, Well, More

Making a list of prior endeavors has shored up my fortitude for future goals, which is why I keep track of interesting things I have accomplished.

These are 24 adventures from the “Crushed It” list, and if you happen to need a few more life list ideas:

🐬 Swim with dolphins

🏍 Obtain a motorcycle license

🐊 Airboat the Everglades

🏝 Live in another country (As a kid, I lived in Jamaica. It was only for a couple of years and, I got ringworm twice but….crushed it!)

⛵ Sail on a sailboat

🌍 Experience a Africa safari

🥶 Polar plunge

🏄‍♀️ Surf

🛷 Dogsled

🐎 Horseback ride

🐋 Whale watch in Alaska

🔥 Hot air balloon

🐂 Ride a mechanical bull

🛶 Take a gondola in Venice

🥾 Spelunk

🎫 Zipline

🚁 Ride in a helicopter

🗼 Kiss atop the Eiffel Tower

👟 Complete a marathon

🏂 Snowboard

⌛ Sandboarding in Dubai

🌊 Whitewater raft

🧗‍♀️ Canyoneer in Zion

🎿 Skijor

Many of my prior adventures were opportunities that were through the military or school. That changed when I left.

As I settled into the everyday grind of work, weekends, and more work, I needed a reminder to dream big, write it down, and plan it out because life is better when it’s listed.