CMT and The Bucket List

[Guest guest]

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/911725--before-you-die-what-do-you-want-to\

-do

There are 103 items on Sejal Patel's bucket list. Yalini Jegatheeswaran has 38.

Crabtree has narrowed it down to eight.

Patel, 24, a Toronto native, began hers after moving to Portland for work in

2008, far from family and friends. She set up a memo on her BlackBerry, called

it Bucket List and started ticking things off.

She got her motorcycle licence. She ran a half-marathon. She went bungee

jumping. Twice. She went to the Vancouver Olympics. She went camping. She's

planning a trip to Tonga. She's learning how to juggle.

" It makes me leave my comfort zone, " says Patel (though she did have prior

experience leaving her comfort zone when, in high school, she volunteered to

work with prisoners putting together a book of their poetry).

She thinks that if she had stayed in Toronto, she would probably have fallen

into a routine with family and friends instead of testing her limits.

" I feel like life just gets away from you sometimes. The list keeps me focused

and working toward something, " Patel says.

Freeman and Neil Teplica, authors of the book 100 Things to Do before You

Die, published in 1999, are often credited with kick-starting the before-you-die

phenomenon. The urgency of making a list was underscored when Freeman died in

2008 in a fall at his home in Venice, CA., after completing about half of his

list. He was 47.

The 2007 movie, The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Freeman,

plucked the idea from the background noise of popular culture and sent it

soaring into the mainstream.

A number of books with accompanying websites have since sprung up, including

1,000 Places to See Before You Die; 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die;

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before you Die and 1,001 Books You Must Read Before

You Die.

There are books and websites on how to write bucket lists and dozens of websites

to post them on, including 43things.com and the 43-things book, Dream it, list

it, do it.

More than 2.5 million people have shared their goals on the site since it was

launched in 2004, according to 43-things.com editor Kathy Mar.

" Kids always get asked what they want to be when they grow up, but we stop

asking those big-picture questions as we enter adulthood, " says founder and CEO

Josh .

Bucket lists encourage people to start asking those questions again; writing

them down helps motivate us to act on our dreams.

" Who isn't satisfied by checking an item off a list? " says .

The most popular goals in Toronto, according to the site, are to stop

procrastinating, fall in love, write a book, lose weight, get a tattoo, see the

Northern Lights, travel the world, go on a road trip with no predetermined

destination and to be happy.

Lose weight, save money and be happy are the top resolutions of 2011 so far,

according to the site, which is at 48,000 New Year's resolutions and counting.

Other lists on other sites range from the impossible and absurd to the

predictable, whimsical, clueless and subversive. There are people who want to

learn to read minds before they die, walk on water, be in two places at once,

fly a hot-air balloon across the country, swim with dolphins and buy bath

towels.

Patel says her list is definitely a living document. Taking a bartending course,

for example, doesn't sound as interesting as it once did.

Yalini Jegatheeswaran, 26, had some experience breaking rules when she began her

bucket list. Her parents expected her to pursue a career in law, medicine or

engineering. Instead, she wrote her GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) in

secret and is now finishing her MBA at the University of Toronto. She keeps her

bucket list on her laptop.

" Sometimes I look at it for inspiration, " she says.

Her list includes flipping a house, visiting an active volcano, walking on fire,

starting a charitable organization for the homeless, learning how to swim, golf,

speak French, ride a gondola in Venice and a camel in the Middle East.

Venice is at the top of Crabtree's list. Born with a hereditary

neuromuscular disorder, called Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, she has slowly

lost use of her feet and legs and her hands are now curled into claws.

" Venice is like a dream for me. I want to see it before it disappears and before

I disappear, " say Crabtree, 68, of St. Catharines, who runs the website

accessibleNiagara.com.

She is fascinated by decaying architecture, but the steps up the bridges and the

step down into a gondola are impossible for her. She would have to be carried.

" I just need two gorgeous hunks to carry me, " she says.

This fall she crossed gliding off her bucket list after the York Soaring

Association took her to 3,000 feet in a glider near Arthur, Ont.

" We were up there for 45 minutes and it felt like 15, " Crabtree wrote in her

blog, http://lindacrabtree.wordpress.com/. " The quiet, the feeling of absolute

freedom, the leaning turns, the G-force ups and stomach-lifting downs, that tiny

tingle of fear that something untoward might happen, all added to the excitement

and beauty of the flight. "

The club had put together a lift on the back of a golf cart to get her out.

She hopes her next adventure is a hot-air balloon ride. Or Venice.

" I even wrote Oprah. She's got her own network now. You never know. "