The Bucket List: Embrace Your Life

            Last night I was sitting in my hotel room and I decided to watch a movie. There were a couple of choices: The Bucket List and No Country for Old Men. 

It’s funny – I don’t know about you, but when I’m tired I always look at the length of a movie. It was an hour and 32 minutes versus two hours and seven minutes. I didn’t think I could last an hour and 32 minutes, let alone two hours and seven minutes. I also had my Blackberry next to me and some emails to take care of, so I didn’t really want to concentrate on a movie. No Country for Old Men would be a movie I’d have to concentrate on, so I started watching The Bucket List.  

I’m not the kind of person who gets really depressed – ever – but I have to tell you, about half way through that movie I felt angry. I started to feel down because I realized that most of our lives we spend working, and building a life, and then all of a sudden that life can be taken away at any moment. 

I teach people how to embrace life every day and live life to the fullest, but the movie made me realize how many people waste time. They act as if they have an endless supply of time, and they waste it. They sit around and think, “Oh, I’m only 30; I’ve got so much time.”  

But you don’t!  

You never know when your number is up. An interesting thing Morgan Freeman asks in the voiceover of the film is, “If you could know the exact day of your death, would you want to?”  

I wouldn’t. I don’t want to know the end. There are so many people who, when they know that they have six months left, that’s when they start living. You’ve read many books about people who thought they had six months left to live, and those were the best six months of their lives.  

Faced with this, you’re forced to do the things you would normally never do. You don’t have those lifetime fears or blocks anymore. It seems like so many people out there spend so much time not focusing on their lives and not enjoying every day because they think, well, tomorrow… 

There may never be another tomorrow. It’s funny because in the film they travel around the world and they do all these fun things, but I think that if it comes down to a bucket list there are things you can do every day in your own life. These things can really motivate you. 

It’s a great movie to really watch and look at the important message. That film, and Defending Your Life – have you seen that? 

Both of those are pretty amazing movies when it comes to really opening up your eyes and realizing that you need to embrace your life, love your life, and live it everyday. Otherwise, you’re just going to sit around writing your bucket list.

You can’t jam it all into six months. 

Every day should be your bucket!