100 For This Life: A Little Background

When I think about the origins of where I learned about making a list of 100 things that I'd like to do in this lifetime, I can't say for sure where the idea to generate such an exhaustive agenda came from.  Clearly, it's a popular idea, evidenced by the 700 million search results I got from Google after typing in 100 list challenge. Looking back in my blog and my notebooks, I originally generated my first list back in 2006, a year after I was diagnosed with cancer, likely while I was in the throws of thinking it was possible I could die having accomplished so little in my 30 years of life.

My tattoo looks like this number 8.  It's an infinity sign on the back of my neck.

My 100 list shows up here on my blog, back in early 2007.  I was pretty proud of the things that I did accomplish from that list, including #28: BUYING THE NEW YORK TIMES IN NEW YORK, #3: VISIT NIAGARA FALLS, and #60: GET A TATTOO.  I got one step closer to completing #17: GET A PH.D. when I finished my MSEd at UPenn this year.

So what happened to my pursuit of the original 100 Things to do Before I Die list? Well, part of the reason I abandoned it was because I realized I wasn't actually going to die from cancer. Another part is that, well, the routines of the daily grind trumped the endeavor of completing my pie-in-the-sky list. Then that movie The Bucket List came out, and I thought I might be seen as jumping on the bandwagon of compiling death wishes. So away the list went.... but I never really forgot about it.

2011 was a rough year for me personally and professionally.  Nothing devastating was happening to me; in fact, many people would have looked at my life and thought I was doing quite well, but I struggled with stress over trying to be everything to everyone, and it killed much of my free and happy spirit. Again, the sentiment that "life is too short" surfaced up in my psyche, and I began to generate a new list.  I had no problems coming up with the first 50 items. Getting up to 75 was difficult. The last 25 items occurred to me a few months after I initially restarted the list. My daughter, Tabby, offered up two list items and made it very clear to me that she was more than willing to help me complete as much of the list as she could, mainly because much of it looks so FUN to her!

So, my rebooted list.  Shall we do it? Let's do it.