Posts
Mr. Toastmaster
Ladies and Gentleman
Today I will be talking to you about bucket list. Does any one know what a bucket list is?
Can I have a show of hands, who have watched “The Bucket List” Movie? This movie is about 2 old man, who have got cancer, and they are only given 3 months to live. With this they started to write out a list of things to do before they die.
Do you have a bucket list?
You see Bucket list is just one of the mechanics for us to discover the purpose of life. I cannot stress enough on to the importance of this Authentic Question “What is the purpose of My Life?” What is the reason for being? [Pause 2 seconds]
What are you going to tell your children or the young ones in your family when they ask you what should they do when they grow up?
This is an authentic question that is being studied since the time of Plato and many other philosophers and thinkers before him, from that date till now, this very authentic question is about 2 thousand years old.
6 minutes is impossible for me to tell you about the history and literature on the attempts by thinkers and philosophers who tried to answer this question. I do not have enough time to talk to you about ontology and existentialism.
So I will go directly into one of the mechanics that you can use to discover your life’s purpose. Which is writing your very own “Bucket List”, which is a very simple thing to do, imagine it as just a TODO list but instead for daily, you have it be for your whole life. But if my speech is just to teach you how to write it then it would be shorter than 6 minutes. J
So I will stress the importance of the concept in finding your life’s meaning, which would justify for the exercise of writing and maintaining your life’s bucket list.
You see all of us have a shelf life, some longer some shorter.
My Take on life’s purpose is the picture and film analogy, for example if you have a picture of an axe and a tree, you cannot derive the meaning of the picture, except just naming the content of the picture, but supposing you have a series of picture put together like how a film in a video clip would, then you have a moving movie clip that shows the axe chopping the tree.
Analogous to life is that we have a lot of moments in life and in each moment is rich with certain experiences either good or bad. When we stream all these meaningful moments together at the end of our life, then only could we find out the totality of the meaning of our lives.
But listen and observe, “It is only at the end of our life’s that we stream the moments together that we would be able to derive the meaning of our life’s”. What is the problem in this statement?
Well if your discovery is a positive life’s purpose, then good that now you can rest in peace, but what if your discovery is a negative one? It is too late to make any amendments though, because you are already at the end. Isn’t it a bit scary to only discover the meaning of your life towards the end of it?
In short life is a one way street.
You see discovering life’s purpose is not only important for your self, but also for those whom you are leading. Which means this is important to fathers and mothers, managers, and team leads. The stick and carrot principle does not work any more, I am not sure weather you have notice this or not.
The current generation is motivated based on will. I will prove this by talking about 2 books “A Man’s Search For Meaning by Victor Frankle” , “Drive- By Daniel H. Pink” and about a person John Goddard.
“A Man’s Search for Meaning” has had a big impression on me during my down times. Victor Frankl is one of the surviving prisoner of war in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Germany
Conditions were harsh in the concentration camp, a prisoner could die any day and any time at the whim of the guards. Prisoners are rationed with only 1 piece of bun with a bowl of very diluted soup a day as food, imagine having only that and being forced to do hard labor.
Life expectancy of prisoners were estimated to be 2 weeks, before either they commit suicide, become insane, become sick or killed by the guards. In this circumstances Victor Frankl, see the meaning to his suffering, and he will to live so that he could tell the story and ensure that this inhumane and cruel event in history will never ever repeat itself. Most of the surviving prisoners would either commit suicide in 1 month or would go crazy, because they cannot lead a normal life after the experiences in the camp.
But Victor Frankl found freedom through thought in the camp, in fact he felt more freedom than the guards. Some of the guards in the camp committed suicide because they felt stuck and find no meaning in the work of torturing the prisoners.
Victor Frankl invented Logos Theraphy, in that he argue that the Abraham Maslow who invented the “Hierarchy of needs” stating that Human beings main motivation is based on the “Will to Pleasure” is inaccurate, because there is also another greater need which is the “Will to Meaning”.
One strong example on how Victor used Logos therapy on his patient was Victor’s account with a patient who had just lost his wife, this patient fell into depression and have no reason for living. Victor ask the patient to find the meaning for his wife’s death. At first it was hard, as the patient kept holding on to the taught that it was unfair, and this shouldn’t happen to him, but when asked again, the person search from the perspective of love. What the person said was “The reason for my wife’s passing is so that she don’t have to bear with the feeling of loosing a love one”, with that the patient not only came out of depression but started to see the meaning for his own suffering.
The reason that I am telling you about Victor Frankl Story is to illustrate that with a clear life’s purpose one actually strengthens one’s spirit, and a strong spirit is important in facing the challenging circumstances of life that will come and knock you off the ground, and I don’t think the challenges of your life would equate to what have been faced by Victor.
The second book, “Drive- by Daniel H. Pink” have confirmed that people are motivated by “Will to Meaning” one very such example is the case study of Atlassian. The company created a policy which is to allow the 20% of the staff’s daily working hours to choose and work on projects that they love or create the features that they would like to see in the current software system. The finance department was totally against this, because they think that people would take advantage of the allotted 20% time. But it turned out that not only did the programmers did not misuse the 20% time but as a result hundred and hundreds of profitable projects are started by this initiative. You see people don’t need to be hit by the stick and to be shown a carrot to move, you just need to help them realize their potential and purpose, show them, in the scheme of all things, what are the cause and effect of their work’s contribution.
I have shown you books, you may challenge me with the idea that yes the books says that discovery of meaning matters, but does the bucket list mechanism works. Then it is time I tell you about this person “John Goddard”. He have a bucket list which he called it a “Life List” it contains 127 items, when he passed on he achieved out of which he achieved 109 of them. Those were not simple or easy goals. They included climbing the world's major mountains, exploring from source to mouth the longest rivers of the world, piloting the world's fastest aircraft, running a mile in five minutes and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica." I will choose his top 10 goals that relates to me.
| John Goddard’s Goals | |||
| No. | Achieved | Goals | Comments |
| 1 | Done | Explore | |
| 2 | | Climb | |
| 3 | Done | Become an Eagle Scout | |
| 4 | | Appear in a Tarzan movie | |
| 5 | Done | Publish an article in National Geographic Magazine | |
| 6 | | Read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica | (Has read extensive parts in each volume) |
| 7 | Done | Light a match with .22 rifle | |
| 8 | Done | Circumnavigate the globe | (four times) |
| 9 | | Visit the moon | ("Someday, if God wills") |
| 10 | Done | Live to see the 21st century | |
You see the purpose of having a bucket list is that you could use it as a your life’s engineering check list. What you can do or will do is only limited by what you dare to imagine.
A quote by William Jennings Bryan “Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice. Not something to wish for, but to attain”. So the bucket list is a great place to start choosing the moments that would lead to your destiny. I urge you to start designing and creating your life now.
Thank You.
I will share with you my Bucket List:-
1) Celebrate 130 Marriage Anniversary with My Wife
2) Earn a Real Estate License
3) Be a real Estate Guru
4) Own 10 Shops to be rented
5) Run a 40 KM marathon
6) Join an Iron Man Competition
7) Earn a Aikido Black Belt
8) Earn a Judo Black Belt
9) Own a property in Perf Australia
10) Earn a Brazillian Jiu Jit Su Black Belt
11) Own 10 Factories to be rented
12) Own 20 Apartments to be rented
14) Want to own a bungalow
15) Learn Carpentry Skills to Build a Rocking Chair
16) Build A Buddhist Temple
17) Be a Manager in an MNC
18) Start a Martial Art School
19) Start a chain of book shops
20) Earn a Cert in CFA
21) Earn a Cert in CPA
22) Be a Master at meditation
23) Become a Speaker teaching values of Mastery and Meditation
24) Have all my family members Learn Martial Arts
25) Start Orphanage Homes
26) Have 5 children’s
27) Earn a PHD.
28) Stay in Tibet
29) Have a conversation with The Pope
30) Start a School
31) Earn a psychology degree
32) Earn a philosophy degree
33) Write 50 books.
34) Be a politician to serve the country
35) Visit the seven wonders of the world
36) Want to own a Hummer Car
37) Live to the age of 150
38) Join a 4 Wheel Challenge
