Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

How do you make your own bucket list?

As I move closer to the 65th year of my life, the concept of having a list of thing I want to do before I "kick the bucket" seems to make more sense.

This idea of setting down things you really want to do before you move on to eternity was popularized i the movie, The Bucket List, with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.  When it came out, it was an entertaining concept, but now that I'm older, it seems to be a good idea.

Do you have one?  Can you share what's on it?

I've started mine on this blog and I'm sharing it.  I don't have any big ticket items like water skiing in the Suez Canal or peeing in a urinal in the West Wing of the White House.  But, there lots of stuff that I want to do. 

So, I'm putting all kinds of stuff down that comes to mind.  I will play with this and rearrange and then prioritize the items on the list.  Right now, I'm just listing things.  I will add more and will probably take stuff off.

 

My New Year's Resolutions: I need to be physically fit

I used to run when I was in my mid 20s to early 30s.  It started when I worked for former Michigan House Speaker Bobby Crim who was a runner of the first order.  His enthusiasm and encouragement got a lot of us to join him at the Downtown YMCA in Lansing.

It was great because as I ran around that small track inside the building there were a lot of things happening.  It was 24 laps to the mile, so it wasn't hard to run a lap, run a few more and work your way up.  There were the social aspects.  Every morning I ran with lots of people from the legislature, various state departments and others who worked in the downtown area.

I ran in some races and enjoyed it and I felt good because I was fairly trim and I was fit.  And then my life went through various transitions and I found myself reverting to old habits and ouch, I had gained the it all back.

Now as a baby-boomer of the first class, my knees can hurt and so can an ankle where I have a plate with some screws.

During the summer, we walked outside on many days and now with the snow and the ice, I'm left with the treadmill and the mall.

I need to resolve to do it everyday where I break a sweat.

I also need to continue my journey on Weight Watchers Online which has helped me move from 238 to 210 with another 15 pounds as my goal.  That means watching and recording what I eat.

Two resolutions right there:  Walking and Weight Watchers Online.

What about you other baby-boomers?  Have you struggled with this area?  What are you doing or what do you want to do?

A starting point for my baby-boomer New Year's resolution setting

UPDATE:  Here's the post written by my son, Justin, that inspired me to think about my own New Year's resolutions.

It's been five years since I retired from my day job as a legislative staff member in the Michigan House of Representatives.  It's time for me to take a serious look at where I've been, what I've done and where I want to go.

I realize that at age 63, it's important for me to pick what I want to concentrate on wisely.  I've got more life behind me than I do ahead of me.  That's just a reality.

What's my baseline for deciding where I want to spend my thoughts, my efforts and my passion?  That's changed over the years pretty dramatically.

All my life I've been a person filled with passion to help make the world a better place, especially as it related to the things I experienced.  For me, it was my single-mom who was married right after World War II, had me, and then had by dad disappear to never be heard from again.

Back then, the world was not kind to women in that position.  Social services were almost non-existent. Churches, the place where you'd expect love and help for a person in that position, were no-shows when it came to practicing what they preach.  And public officials, at least the one's from the local city hall, kicked around single moms like they were an old almost deflated soccer ball.

That's why I became a newspaper reporter, got involved in politics at a variety of levels and spent a good chunk of my life as a staffer in our state legislature.  I wanted to make things better.

Well, you can see what happened to the news business.  Politics is ripe and overflowing with individuals who are interested mainly in themselves.  Oh yeah, I got involved with the church.  Religion as defined by the contemporary church can be toxic to individuals. 

After experiencing the ultimate reality show of daily living, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is in none of those.

It rests with my relationship with Jesus Christ.  That's not a popular thing to say.  Some will point and say, "Wes, you've gone extreme."  No, I haven't really.

There's nothing left.  There's nothing that really provides hope that lasts other than that relationship which requires faith.  This is my starting or continuing point if you will for the next period of time.  The Bible verse, the word as stated in God's book: 

Acts 20:24 (The Message)

 ^22-24"But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I'm completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won't be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.

 

Reacting to my son's New Year's resolutions

My son, Justin, just published his list of resolutions for the New Year and my instant reaction is to say, "Right on, man.  Go for it."  It's a pretty impressive list of goals and includes things like writing a book about what he's learned in his field, cooking a couple of big meals every month for his friends, losing  weight and running more and about traveling around the country.

What else can I say?

Well, he's made think about my goals for the next year as a somebody who will turn 64 at the end of the summer.

I realize that I'm at a point where I need to narrow down my goals to the things most important to me.  Perhaps, I need to put together my list and get blog input as I shift the pieces around and move some off the list.

His employer, Clearspring Technologies which has the AddThis for content sharing on the web, is lucky to have him, especially in his position as community manager.  He knows how to pull people together and how to serve them in a way that's an example to others.

UPDATE:  My son has inspired me to look at my own New Year's Resolutions from a babyboomer point-of-view.