I recently found out that a great friend – one of the funniest, most intelligent, firecrackingly gorgeous women I know – is the author of the world’s dullest bucket list.
Like someone telling you their dreams, people telling you their bucket list is horrendous at the best of times but when "Learn how to play Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton on the guitar" is top of the list you would be starting to worry about a person's perspective on life.
I shouldn’t joke. She got very ill a few years ago; the kind of sickness you don’t want to hear any friend talk about. The kind that makes you realise – when she tells you she has “It” – no matter how many wise words you’ve read about what to do or say in these situations you will never do or say the exact right thing.
In our case, we drank enough wine to floor the citizens of a small Italian town and danced (I don’t dance, in normal, non-life threatening illness circumstances) in a kitchen until ridic-o-clock. It felt like the “right” thing to do.
But her bucket list? All wrong. And boring as anything. She wanted to bake a pavlova. A PAVLOVA!!! Not even one of those that you set on fire, potentially causing injury, just the kind with loads of berries and double cream chucked on top.
Also on her bucket list: “Climb Croagh Patrick.” No offence to the sacred mountain. As it happens I am fond of looking up at Croagh Patrick when driving around Co Mayo, knowing I will never set foot on its stony, unforgiving paths, but I don’t think it belongs on anyone’s bucket list.
Kilimanjaro maybe. Even an Alp or two. Bits of the Camino at an absolute push. If you insist on writing a bucket list, at least aim high. (I don’t mean the Sugar Loaf).
I pressed her a bit more on her bucket list and discovered “make a piece of pottery” was also on there. Let’s be clear about something, this is not a life goal. Again, no disrespect to anybody who likes to fashion things from clay but I do not understand the urge to make a misshapen mug before you croak it.
I slagged her for 15 minutes – especially about Eric Clapton – and then worried I was being a bit harsh.
She confessed that she had thought of making up a pretendy bucket list, the one she would tell people about while she got on with ticking off the things on the boring one.
I ask her what would have been on that one. She comes up with the goods this time: win Wimbledon; get on The Graham Norton Show; climb the Seven Summits; join a girl band. I was warming to her previous under-achieving list by this stage.
As she rightly pointed out, if bucket lists are annoying by their very nature then a highly aspirational one is even more of a pain.
I interviewed Marian Keyes recently about her brilliant new book of essays Making It Up As I Go Along and I asked her what she thought of bucket lists. "I think they are tragic," she said. "All that ticking things off: Climb Macchu Pichu! Swim with dolphins! Some of the happiest moments of my life have happened sitting on a Tuesday evening with a tray on my lap in front of the telly. Bucket lists are too much pressure."
Maybe my friend with her completely-achievable-without-much-effort-list was right.
“Go on a photography course.” She did it. “Do more yoga.” She did that too and can nearly do a hand stand. “Go on a fantastic luxury sun holiday.” Yawnerama. But doable. You know what I mean?
What else? I was intrigued by the last thing on her list. It was basically “give up my job”. Top of her bucket list was making herself redundant. This I found less boring. But also intriguing. Not working was a risk, far bigger than the usual bucket list – “bungee jump”, “skydive”, “sing karaoke for 12 hours non-stop” (okay that’s my one) – stuff you hear about. She did everything on the list except for ditching the job.
Then one day, when she only had “give up my job” left to tick off the list, she was called to a meeting, where for a moment she wondered what she would do when she was offered a promotion. But it wasn’t a promotion. She was relieved of her duties, cutbacks you know, first in last out and all that. “Give up my job” was not something she did but something that was done to her.
It has opened up a whole other vista. She is in hot demand for her skills so she can easily get another job or maybe she’ll hone new skills or go part-time or even start a new business. The world is her bucket list.
Plus, she does the most, um, interesting version of Wonderful Tonight you've ever heard. roisin@irishtimes.com