The Big Five for Life
When your bucket list ends up in the trash
When I was a kid my bucket list was magical.
- Get a pet
- Become a handball professional
- Meet Nick from the Backstreet Boys and marry him.
Over the years my list changed a thousand times. And I was annoying as a kid, so much so that some of my life goals became a reality only because of that. Back then, it was called tantrums, but after all the several self-help books I’ve read, I’d liken myself to call it ‘persistence’ today.
And thus my parents bought me a budgie.
A budgie!
When I figured out how ardous the cleaning and caretaking of the silly bugie can be, I decided to cross out the pet of my bucket list and gift it to my grandma instead. The same happened to poor Nick. When I discovered my appeal to heavy metal, the blond Backstreet Boy vanished from the list. For being a sports professional, I was simply too old before I realized I had to start early. Shit happens!
One day I woke up. Suddenly, I was 30.
At 30, you can’t just take a blank sheet of paper and write down your goals. That would be called a bucket list. As an adult, your bucket list is put together like the menu in one of these “build your own food restaurants”. You choose the type of dwelling you want to live in, decorate it with the furniture you like and personalize it with your name on the door and voila! One point on the bucket list.
In the 90’s this was a game called “SIMS”. It’s our reality now.
And thus, like everybody else, I had my bucket list — my big five for life chosen and written down. I was ready for the delivery.
- 1 — The perfect house
- 2 — The perfect partner
- 3 — The perfect friends
- 4 — The perfect job
- 5 — The perfect body
My modest choice of my Big Five for Life.
The Big Five Game is an analogy to the 5 animals in Africa most difficult to hunt on foot.
Lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo.
Your success depends on how many animals you have hunted on your trip — how many points on your modest bucket list did you fulfill.
I was 30 and had everything. I basically could have died then, but why didn’t I? Nothing more to see in life, right? But something felt badly wrong.
As I saw my hunted animals hanging on my wall of achievement and happiness, my hunted lion and leopard looked like big cats.
I have a cat hair allergy.
The other animals were just too heavy and tremendous for my wall.
I asked myself what was wrong with me and why I’m not as happy as I was supposed to be.
I took a break. A break of my job, partnership, friends — a break from life.
Some time later I found myself in Thailand. I volunteered. First in a school and later in a hostel. Everything was far away. I needed space and distraction. It was the first time I was on a long trip on my own. I enjoyed the experience every minute, as I slowly came to the realization that the bucket list I chose was not mine. I felt like I had been trapped in an idea I saw in an IKEA catalog, and now I didn’t want to go back.
Weeks passed by this way. I tried not to think too much of anything and just enjoy my stay. My future me, will know what to do — at least, that is what I thought. My new reality was just too comforting to think too much about what will come after this “break”.
One day in my hostel, two guys arrived from India. We made an incredible connection and spent the next 2 days together, drinking, talking, and exploring the city.
After they left I went with some clients to a temple nearby. To entertain them and explain Buddhism, we did something called Kau Chim — wooden sticks that predict the future.
I’m not really spiritual nor religious. I never even think about it, it is just the way I was brought up. But this day something strange happened. I got one of the few “bad news sticks” — I felt like in school again after a maths test.
That was not the problem. Of course not.
The problem was that one of the Indian guys read my hand when we were, let’s say, tipsy. I forgot about it until I did this child domino of fortune telling in the temple. And what can I say, the spirits of the temple agreed almost exactly with what my drunk friend told me some days earlier.
I freaked out.
It felt almost as someone smashed the pillar of my house of cards while I was sitting on the roof. For the first time in almost 2 months, I realized a change in my life and that I had front-row seats on a rollercoaster ride.
I felt confused.
I felt powerless.
I felt lost.
Isn’t it a cliché to go to Asia on a self realization trip?!
Hours and days of self realisation passed by. Before I left Europe, I had — as they say — “everything”. How can I possibly be happy in life, if I wasn’t happy having “everything”?
As natural as it sounds to me today, back then I didn’t understand that everything is nothing more than an empty word.
So what do we actually mean by that? We install and decorate our comfort zone to the utmost comfort it can possibly give us. It may not be easy to reach wealth, a big house, a good paid career in a “real” job, and a perfect partner, but it is easy to strive for them after all.
In the end, it is what our friends and idols preach us on TV and social media, right? They seem to be happy, what else can we possibly want?
Everything, but please don’t make me think.
Welcome to the modern society.
I would love to end this article with:
“After three days I saw the light, after five, I changed everything I needed and after seven, I fulfilled my new dreams and have been living in a state of Nirvana since.”
- The End -
Unfortunately it doesn’t end this way. This journey may never end until the day I’ll die — I’m quite sure about this. Also, it is everything but comfortable. A lot of obstacles crossed my way and endless tears flowed down my cheeks.
In Thailand, I threw my bucket list away.
Different countries, people, and traditions gave me new perspectives and new things to think about. I realized that the world is too big, interesting and colorful to chase a Hollywood fantasy that I couldn’t enjoy when I had it.
Today, some time after my ‘enlightenment’, I am still getting to know myself. I struggle, I cry and sometimes, I feel lost. However, everything has changed.
I lost my old bucket list together with my old life. I said goodbye to my African collectibles and let them go.
I don’t want to hunt anymore. I wrote a new bucket list:
- 1 — I want to know myself.
- 2 — I want to know the world.
- 3 — I want to be myself.
- 4 — I want to be the world.
- 5 — I want to be happy.
