Your bucket list should grow shorter with age

By V. Paul Reynolds

It’s somewhat satisfying to look back at your life and realize that you have pretty much outlived your bucket list. Whether you are an outdoors person, or not, you probably have a list of things you’d like to do before Father Time pulls down the curtain.

Much of my bucket list over the years has been monopolized by an array of hunting or fishing adventures, some within reach and some pure fantasy. I have been blessed with some wonderful hunts in Colorado and Quebec, not to mention dream-come-true fishing experiences in Labrador, Alaska and the American West.

The outdoor experience, I acknowledge, is not limited to just hunting and fishing trips. The potential for outdoor adventures is almost limitless, whether it’s camping out on the Gaspe or ice climbing on a glacier in Banff.

To each his own. Some of us are more Walter Mitty prone than others. A late middle-aged man I know is still scouring the website for his next thrill, whether it’s bungee jumping over the Grand Canyon or buckling in for a zip ride over the Trolltunga Rock in Norway.

You can have it. Heights have never been my cup of tea. Funny thing, though, as a private pilot I never had a problem, but put me on the edge of a switchback on the road to Pike’s Peak or the Knife Edge on Mt. Katahdin and I fight butterflies and sweat like a Banshee in the Mojave.

A late friend, who had a penchant for taking chances, always insisted that “if it ain’t scary, it ain’t no fun!” And wouldn’t you know it, he died from old age. He probably nailed it. How else can you explain some humans’ yearnings when it comes to so-called extreme outdoor adventures?

If, like me, you are a cautious sort, not a thrill seeker, and your bucket list has been completed, you might want to consider a reverse bucket list: things you don’t care if you ever do, even if you live to be 100 years old. 

Just for example: Cliff camping, skywalking in the Alps, scaling up California Redwoods, tree camping, snow boarding a Canada glacier, rock climbing in Monument Valley, or extreme kayaking on the frothing Clendenning River in British Columbia. The list is endless.

What about your bucket list? In the motion picture by the same name, the bucket list items of cancer patients Carter and Edward were not necessarily anything daring or dangerous, or even outdoors related, just something each of them had always dreamed of doing, but never had the money or the time.

Here is the good news. Bucket lists, like personal ambitions, tend to mellow and marginalize with the passing of time. My bucket list once included an Atlantic salmon fishing trip to the Kamchatka Peninsula and a guided trout fishing trip on the San Juan River in Chile, neither of which came to pass.

If the elder George Bush could skydive at the age of 85 years perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for you and me to find ONE thing from the reverse bucket list and give it a shot. After all, adventures like these do add excitement to life and some say, free what is inside us all. Helen Keller, who could neither see nor hear, said that “life should be a daring adventure.”

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com.