Author and businessman Ian Child shares his view on bucket lists and urges you to seize the day when it comes to realising your dreams.
Words: Ian Child. Images: Shutterstock.
With Christmas and New Year done and dusted, you may be taking stock and assessing your finances. Will this be the year you take that dream holiday or make that extravagant purchase you’ve been promising yourself for years? Or will reality bite and force you (again) to defer those pleasures?
January seems a good time to think about bucket lists: those wish lists of things to do before we kick the proverbial bucket – hence the name! Earlier this year, I took my family on a short holiday to Paris. It marked two landmark birthdays, so we pushed the boat out and did it in style. I loved every second of the trip and knew we would all remember it forever.
One day, my daughter asked for my top three bucket-list countries. I rattled them off almost without thinking, as they’d been on my list my entire adult life. It made me reflect: if I’ve had things on the list for 35 years, how much effort am I putting in to getting them ticked off? I realised that a bucket list can easily morph into a “regret list”. The list itself doesn’t change; we just wake up one day and realise we no longer have the time, money, or ability to do those things.
On the way home in the UK, we passed a junction and saw police tape and an ominous yellow “Did You See?” board. A quick look on the local news website told us that two people had been killed in a road accident two days earlier. It brought it home to me that life-changing things can happen at any time. We’d just had a fantastic holiday, but who could guarantee we could or would do it again next year or the year after? It was a sobering thought. I decided to make an effort to tick things off my list not just once in a blue moon but at least once a year.
NOW IS THE TIME
It’s not always lack of money that holds us back – although that can of course be a factor. Sometimes it’s feeling guilty for spending our own money – our inner bank managers don’t approve!
A friend of mine is a case in point. We recently enjoyed a road trip around the Scottish Highlands in my impractical “midlife crisis” car. He loved driving it, and I asked him what his own dream car would be. He told me, and I asked him why, as a reasonably well-off chap, he didn’t buy one. His inner bank manager wouldn’t let him: depreciation, insurance, bills – all of these meant that he couldn’t justify the purchase. And, of course, he was right. There was no financial justification.
Of course, you need to provide for your living expenses, but imagine reflecting back on your life in 10 or 20 years’ time: would you prefer to gaze lovingly at a healthy bank statement, or would you prefer to remember the amazing experiences you’ve had?
We tend not to notice the passing of time day to day, and we tell ourselves we can always do things “tomorrow”. But the months whizz by. Next Christmas will be here before we know it. As each year passes, your bucket list gets one year closer to becoming a regret list.
Ian Child is a former corporate leader, author of Your Own Personal Time Machine: A Guide To Getting Your Life Back (£9.95, amazon.co.uk), and co-founder of property development training company propertyCEO (propertyceo.co.uk).
Customer spend data from Virgin Money current account customers who have spent in one or more of the lifestyle categories between 1 March 2024 and 31 May 2024. Lifestyle categories include eating out, holidays, style, wellbeing, entertainment, keeping fit, staying away, and memberships and subscriptions.
