If 2011 Was Going To Be The Last Year Of Your Life, What Would Be In Your Backpack?

http://www.thelastyearofyourlife.com/The_Last_Year_Of_Your_Life/Welcome.html

How To End Procrastination, Fear, Doubt, and DeClutter Your Life -- "The Last Year of Your Life"

I found this video while searching for some motivation to help me declutter. Interestingly, it's really gotten me back to my Bucket-List. :-> Hope this inspires you today!!

I also found one thread on 43things.com:

http://www.43things.com/things/view/1661187/live-one-year-of-my-life-as-if-its-my-last

9 items on my New Bucket List

#1. I'd like to see the AURORA BOREALIS
I saw a picture of it somewhere and it looked ...

#2. Swim with sharks and dolphins

I heard my friend who said she swam with dolphins, ...

#3. Design my own clothes

I've always wanted to design my own clothes! Won't be ...

#4. Write a novel/short story/article and have it published

I've always wanted to be an author!

#5. Live in a brickhouse with a fireplace and garden

I've always had a thing for brickhouses; my uncle lives ...

#6. Support the livelihood of Love Birds

I had a really cute lovebird once. I accidentally killed ...

#7. Share my art work and use profits to help people who need Creativity and Inspiration in their lives.

Art works of so many kind have given me inspiration. ...

#8. Own a sports car

And enjoy the speed, the wind in my hair, and cool image!

 

#9. Choose one small activity that will thread my entire life

When I thought about my death, I really wished I ...

http://www.bucketlist.net/lists/user/jeeyoona/#.Tqm7dOup9SE.email

Wish: Sleep Well At Night / Obstacle: My day isn't over yet blues (GUILT)

Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. That usual sense of *guilt* that I haven't done enough, didn't finish what I was supposed to, or could have done more of was hanging over me. And that feeling just REALLY bothered me.

How is it, that when I am living my own life in my own skin, I can't control this feeling?

Feeling annoyed, wanting to do away with it once and for all, I started searching the words "closure" and "completion" on my Galaxy Tab Kindle. I found one book that merited attention.

I didn't quite finish the book, it was already close to 4am, but I feel I have found a new *mantra* for my predicament. A predicament that's gone on for more than 2 decades now!

You can read the review to the book here. It's called Don't Start What You Can't Finish - The Book Of Completion and written by Morag Campbell. Reading the book, I feel like I have reset my bottomline. So often, I would have these delusional thoughts; thinking I could accomplish a million things all at once. We all know that that is hokum (to quote Sheldon Cooper).

I read somewhere that the best way to feel happy on a daily basis is to live each day and feel that "good tired" feeling at the end of your day.

I just got off the phone with my sister who told me to write out a *realistic* timetable for my day. And see how many free hours I ACTUALLY have. She said hers was at best a 2 hr per day... and that I might have more as I have no kids. She also mentioned that in her experiment to sleep earlier (apparently it helps you lose weight also!) she found that unless there was something fun and enjoyable to do in the morning hours, it was so easy to just go back to sleep after waking up early. So the best way to work this is to a) sleep early, b) watch the fun American TV shows IN THE MORNING. Not at night!

OK. Gotta go now. But I hope this little pebble in the world wide web pond touches upon the lives of other quality-sleep-seekers that come across this post!


Namaste~~

Types of Journal Research: Response Journal

OK. So I found something that could give rise to an on-going project for me.

One type is the reader response journal or literature log, in which learners record their responses to readings. 

 http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/journal.htm




The diaries I kept -- sporadically over the years -- relying on the events of my day and also the intensity of my emotions have consistently proven themselves to be unhelpful. They were unbalanced and temporal at best. Hardly the type of record I would like to preserve as a testament to my life and living.

Instead a consistent theme or a question or cluster of issues with attention to some detail might actually prove more valuable as information over time.

It needs to be a documentation and log, rather than an emotional thing.

Some of my most natural habitual activities are... a) dressing my truth, b) shopping to see what's out and what's new, c) books mostly self-help on Kindle, d) American TV shows, e) health and recovery, and f) interior design.

Hmmm... Maybe I'll keep a Response Journal of American TV shows.

What I Wish for in Life - Unvarying Something

Lately I've been giving more thought to what I would really like at the end of my life. The difficulty in establishing exactly what I want out of life springs from all my competing desires. But out of them all, what I would love to be able to look back on is that one Constant, a thing that threads all the days of my life into one cohesive whole.

I wonder what that *glue* or *thread* might be. For some this would be a diary they keep, others might document their life in video or photo format. But whatever it is, I believe it would be some form or variation of *Observation* they made on Earth during their fleeting stay here.

In order to come to a decision, I will have to explore my options and see what some others have done to preserve the days of their lives.

Some very generic answer might be Anne Frank's diary... a lot of writers and photographers or natural scientist or historians works.

But who knows. I might be able to come across something truly unique and extraordinary!

The Five Rings of Minimalism by Karol Gajda

Karol Gajda's book Luxury of Less: The Five Rings of Minimalism does an excellent job of helping you focus on Life's Essentials. There is a monthly challenge for each ring.

Ring 1 : health (and not just physical health). 
Ring 2 : wealth
Ring 3 : relationships 
Ring 4 : experiences 
Ring 5 : the Void


http://www.amazon.com/Luxury-Less-Rings-Minimalism-ebook/dp/B004Y6GDFW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310989648&sr=8-1

Expressing Your True Nature

I just finished one Writing Prompt which asked me what I would do if there was only one day left to live. And to detail the day from beginning to end.

What became apparent to me was to know what my nature is, and to live, dress, and Express My True Nature.

Right now, I am learning about Dressing Your Truth by Carol Tuttle and her team. So many women have transformed from discovering their true nature. And living and dressing their truth.

I think it would be AWESOME if everyone got to live and dress and Express Their Truth in this lifetime. :-)

Good luck! Enjoy today!

Crossing the Nonsense Divide

So I've been pondering on how I can either choose or frame my "Target Goals" for my Life List or Bucket List. It is a tricky thing though, to craft just exactly WHAT REALLY MATTERS to you in life.

What does Success mean for YOU? or ME?

When I was younger, it was all about *Accomplishment* -- getting good grades, winning the approval of teachers, parents, you-name-it-authority-figures. And I had good reason too, for living that way. It was encouraged by parents, society, school, even church.

But the problem with those goals was that you would invariably end up accomplishing your goal, and then you get a few thrilling moments of Pride and Sense of Completion. Only to realize that you are back to NOT having a goal of that caliber. Then you have to search a new goal that can meet your inner satisfaction and/or some outer form of approved success.

Things took on a turn for me though, when my father who had been pretty much a workaholic almost died when I was in my early 20s. He had lost his work-life balance. And that one experience really made me start to question whether the Strive-For-Accomplishment-Model was really worth anything.

Still, life continued, and I began to search for other more exciting modes of being. But yielded no prominent fruits. Then some time in my mid-20s, I discovered Recovery groups which held a lure over me. I wondered if this would give me something more holistic and worthy. I focused on it and it did give me some very necessary tools for basic self care which I had not known before. But I found it hard to maintain a proper balance between my online and offline existence; and also the gap between my cultural reality of living in Korea versus the more American way of thinking and seeing things that colored the culture of Recovery circles.

OK. So. Those are just some thoughts that I've been pondering in wanting to live a "better" life. Today I found a book in Amazon Kindle Store... that may or may not answer my ruminations on this.

Crossing the Nonsense Divide: Steps to Finding Your Path to a Successful Life by James Henry McIntosh.

I've read the first couple of chapters but haven't come to anything concrete yet.

Still, it does start off with some awfully thought-provoking concepts... that are worth looking into.

Item #1. Write a Best-seller

OK. So I am not that hung up on my writing be a bestseller. Just doing it means a heck of a lot more to me than trying to make it this way or that. My job is to get it out of me!

I just bought a nice little book by Bryan Cohen called "1,000 Creative Writing Prompts" for my lovely delightful Kindle.

I just want to keep writing. Writing itself is the goal. I have attempted two NaNoWriMo challenges and ended up miserable both months. Having a time-frame didn't motivate me. I am not motivated by goals. (This was a recent discovery!) So I am just going to enjoy the process.

I feel pretty sure that just getting it out of me would be a good enough first step. If something emerges out of the body of typed up stuff, great. If not, I would still have a lot of fragments to play with and I can live with that.

Aight. Back to the reading table then.

Going to pick one writing prompt for today. See where I land...

Item #51. Learn Another Language

OK. So my Bucket List will have to start with item number fifty-one. Afterall, I have devoted some five-and-twenty years perfecting my language inadequacies.

Haha! I just stuck my first Star Sticker for this Achievement :-) I feel childish and proud all at the same time.

I need to get a permanent marker pen to write in this book. The page is rather slippery.

To recap though, I can speak...

#1. English fluently. I am currently teaching it at Berlitz and CDI.

#2. Korean well. I could say fluently, but I must admit I struggled to write my design thesis in Korean. So it is less developed than my English.

#3. French OK. I can have a conversation in French and manage to answer the call of nature with relative ease. And in restaurants I am capable of asking and making sure that I'm not eating anything bizarre.

Photos related to this coming soon! They are at my home laptop...

Enjoy the moment! It's all we have.

Love,

Xoxo

Jessica

So I just saw this --> The New Buried Life Trailer

Wow what a great idea for a show!! It really makes you feel a) aware of your mortality, b) how important it is to do things that really matter to you, and c) how we are all equal and same in this regard. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRexWE9yBVA


Two other things I found positive were:
#1. I realized how having that list handwritten & seeing the red line across might be a neat way to go about my bucket list...


#2. Having a group of friends like that to SHARE a bucket list is awesome! Never thought of that before! 

To Add: hug an elephant, play with baby tigers, pet a owl, hold a chimp

I found this on someone's Reaper List today... :-)

http://www.myrtlebeachsafari.com/

I think I want to do ALL 4 of them!!

Two things to put on my list

I'm browsing other peeps' Reaper List and already found 2 interesting ideas! 


1. Build my own gym!
2. Attend a Masquerade Ball


Hmm... I'll need a trampoline for my mini-gym. A wooden pole. Yoga stuff... 

Great tips from 43thing.com users

Just to get things moving, I joined the list on 43things.com for Make Bucket List. Here's the page for advice from members who have already finished it!
http://www.43things.com/things/how_i_did_it/1824597

Two great links are:
The Buried Life http://www.facebook.com/tbl?sk=wall
Reaper List http://www.reaperlist.com/


still Breathing... :-)

Help Me! How do you start a Pointless Collection??

Good evening, fellow Earthlings.

So you see... I was raised in a very serious family, so naturally it is just really difficult to come up with an idea for item number 17, Own a Pointless Collection. How on earth do you come up with a *good* BAD collection of pointless stuff???

I tried to bring this up at work and asked my colleague for some input... but we both found it rather challenging.

Hmm... Any suggestions, dear reader?

Got the book & Why I Got It

OK. So yesterday, I got this book, so that I can basically REFUSE to do some of the suggestions made by the author Richard Horne. 

For now, 23 people have written reviews on it, and the book has received 3.5 stars out of 5.0. Learn more about the book here: 

http://tinyurl.com/64n25ur 

What I liked about the book is that on the right hand side of each suggestion, there was a  neat, detailed "planning" section and a place for you to put a Star Sticker for completion. The back of the book gives you a sheet of all the star stickers, so you get to feel like a kid again! :-)

Now, I may be a Nerdette or Confucian or whatever, but there were some suggestions here that just didn't ring any bells for me. Since I've named the blog The Bucket-List Blues, there's plenty of time for us to discuss AND debate the Why's and Whatever-For's of all those suggestions here. And I intend to do so with all my idle work and at home hours.

Aight then. This should suffice for the debut post. :-) Keep living, keep dying! Until the day we really kick that bucket! 

With earnestness, from Seoul. 

xoxo The Breathing One.