The hardest list of all

A ‘ bucket list’ is a list of things you want to do before dying. The term refers to the Rob Reiner movie by the same name in which two terminally-ill men go on a road trip to do the things they most wanted to do before they kicked the bucket. Things like going skydiving, climbing the Pyramids, dining on the French Riviera, visiting the Taj Mahal, riding a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China, etc.

By contrast, bucketlist.org is a non-profit networking site that encourages people to upload their personal items to complete before they too die. It’s based on the John Lennon premise that life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Sample wishes: swim with a dolphin, be an extra in a film, send a message in a bottle, teach an illiterate person to read, experience weightlessness, let someone feed you peeled seedless grapes, etc. One person’s to-do list, however , has come in for some serious flak.

It goes: 1. Wake up; 2. Breathe; 3. Take a shower; 4. Eat breakfast; 5. Go to work; 6. Eat lunch; 7. Go back to work; 8. Go home; 9. Eat dinner; 10. Sleep; 11. Repeat the steps. Commentators have been scathing, calling the list mundane, cynical and even ‘unrealistic’ . All except for one person who writes, “It’s nice to see some things of interest to you which I may have previously overlooked.” It’s exactly what the Zen student had also overlooked when he asked the Master what he had to do to gain enlightenment . “Everyday sweep the floor, tend the garden and wash the dishes,” the Master had replied.