Dum Spiro Spero

Its called the bucket list. It is a list of things to do before one kicks the bucket (forgive the expression). Usually drawn-up by those who how know much time left there are for them to live. I imagined what would be listed in my bucket list, if I were to draw one. Strange, and perhaps even weird to even consider it.

Some would want to do things they had wanted to earlier in life, but never get round to doing it - visit all the wonders of the world, do extreme sports such as bungie jumping in Queenstown, NZ or skiing on the Swiss Alps, or meet-up with long-lost friends. Obviously it depends on how much wealth one has too.

Sometime ago, I chanced upon a television series called My Name is Earl. The main character, Earl committed all possible misdemeanors and petty crimes that caused physical and psychological hurt to others. He stole, cheated, lied - you named it - he's done it. Suddenly he won a lottery but as he rejoiced on the street, he was knocked down by a car, and almost lost the lottery ticket. When he recovered his ticket, he decided it was karma - and vowed to undo or correct all the wrongs he did in the past. So he listed all the good deeds he needed to do and went on doing it, striking it as he completed one item at a time, just like the bucket list, except that he did not think he was going to die anytime soon. Earl had turned over a new leaf.

Like Earl, many of us do not exactly know when we are going to die, and hence the idea of drawing-up a bucket list is remote, if not irrelevant. Perhaps knowing how much time left to live is not something one looks forward to, but it has its advantages nonetheless. But if we are not privileged to such knowledge, Earl's effort to create a list to undo previous wrongs by doing good, is certainly worth emulating.

If to do many things at once, may not be possible, we can start with an act to undo past wrong and an extra act to do good, each day. It means we negate a wrong and add a good deed too.

We need not wait to know or be told that death is near to start a bucket list.

Dum Spiro Spero, its Latin for while I am still alive.