Want to Feel Better right away?

      Pick some wild, crazy impossible dream. I dare you.  I'll tell you what I did. I wrote a list of 100 things I wanted to do before I died.  I wrote this list when I was a kid after reading an article about some guy who had done exactly the same thing. It was in Life magazine, sometime in the late 1960S. 

     The difference between he and I was that he kept his list, and the thrust of this article was that he was nearly done. He had written things like, learn to fly a plane, publish a book, paddle the length of the Amazon, climb the Pyramids, and lots of other cool things.  I never forgot the article, and don't know if he finished.

But like I said, I never forgot the article, although I've forgotten the details.  The point was that you and I can really, now with some limitations due to our disease, still do alot of things we'd like to do before we die.

I worked backwards, and in all honesty, tried to crib together a list of things I'd already done, then began adding to this list. I started before my illness kicked in.  What surprised me was how much I'd really accomplished.  I'm not a writer but I'd been published many times. I threw it on the list. I'm not a runner, but managed to run 26 miles, and also run a mile in under 6 minutes. I put them on my list, too.  I've been elected to public office and served a term. Another item on the list. I had kids, another on the list. Somehow snatched a degree in Philosophy from an Ivy League college, the list began to grow. 

I won a Silver Medal in rowing in the national collegiate championships, and competed internationally. More on the list.  Married the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. boom on the list. I've met lots of famous people from Nobel Laureates to movie stars to professional athletes. Shook the President's hand. I own a Rosary that was Blessed by the Pope, and a baseball signed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.  It goes on and on.

It goes on and on...and I bet yours would, too.

I come from a very modest background, but I became wealthy enough to own 2 minor league baseball teams.  It sounds like I'm bragging, I'm really not.  I'm talking now about "stuff", junk really. Hell, it not even mine. It's His.

More than the junk I've collected, I found a path back to my faith.  Just to balance this out, there's also a list of regrets that is at least twice as long.  Those things that I'd redo if I could is embarrassingly long.

When I feel sorry for myself, I can read this list. And you know what, I do feel kind of proud. Life doesn't owe me a thing.  What does your list look like?

One really neat thing. I got to bat against Steve (?) Trout who chucked the pea in at about 85 mph. Couldn't touch it. Shagged flies from the warning track, too.

Last suggestion. Put something new on the list, and today do something that will take you a fraction closer to getting that thing done.  I promise you you'll feel better.

God bless you.  Readership on this site runs about 40-50 people a day, not much, but I guess that does make me a publisher.

Comments

[Gimpy Mumpy]

Have just found your site, so your readership is now up to 51! :)
Your list is a great idea, it is all too easy for those of us with chronic pain to focus on what we can no longer do. I recently made a promise to myself to plant and tend a small vegetable garden. Although the reality was much more difficult for me than the idea (see a recent post on my gardening woes:
http://mumpy.typepad.com/gimpy_mumpy/2006/05/gardening_woes.html)
I did feel that even if nothing grows in this garden it has already born fruit. I will always know that I made the attempt and gave it my best.
One more thing off my list :)