By

Bill Cottringer

     When the “Bucket List” movie came out with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, it was a great inspiration for all of us as to how to spend our last days, going out in style. But when you started your own list of things you have dreamed about wanting to do. The cost became prohibitive. The key was making a list of the things you always wanted to do. Now here is a slightly different idea—Make a list of the things you need to do. This won’t cost nearly as much as trying to live out your last minute dreams, and some of these things are free:

1. Make a written will making sure what assets you have go to the right person, fair and square. You don’t need a lawyer to make this legal. There are plenty of templates free on the Internet. In our present computer age, there are probably more valuable electronic assets stored on your hard drive, mobile or back-up hard drives, memory cards and thumb drives than you may be aware of.

2. If you are still working on trying to harness the awesome power of the “Law of Attraction” from “The Secret,” try thinking about the ways you attract the wrong, negative things and gradually stop doing that so you can free up some mental space to actually draw in some positive things you want.

3. Keep a daily or weekly journal of your most important ideas, experiences and challenges. I do this with writing articles. You can look back in perspective and see clearer to appreciate the progress you are making in your personal and professional growth. Sometimes the intelligent things you thought long ago but didn’t follow-up on, present themselves as a second opportunity to take advantage of.

4. Make a short list of some people you have hurt needlessly during your irresponsible and reckless moments . Write them a letter or an e-mail to tell them you are sorry for hurting them and asking for their forgiveness. You don’t even have to send it for results.

5. Go a Google search on movies with a lot of empathy. Make a list and start watching them. The majority will be free with cable TV or satellite dish. If you don’t have that luxury, find a friend who does.

6. Spend more time in nature, being around young children or visit humor resources. These things will teach you much about the natural way of life. Common sense and how to glean something funny from the worst of situations, maybe when you need it most.

7. When you reach a plateau where you are fairly calm and peaceful in your mind and heart and not in the middle of a crisis, major change or time of adversity, plan how you would like to respond when the next serious problem or change does comes your way as it inevitably will. Such mindful planning has saved many lives, or at least kept disasters from happening or mitigated their destructiveness.

8. Always do potlucks with family or friends on holidays. When each person brings a dish, there is always more food for everyone and plus you get to take home or keep as the host, the leftovers. Holidays are always more fun with family and friends.

9. Seek out at least one person who you can have free discussions about your secrets and suspicions, without holding back out of fear of being judged inaccurately or unfavorably. It is not healthy to have too many deep inner thoughts that you don’t expose, or they become beliefs you act on, without testing their validity or practicality. That is often how many failures come about.

10. Eat better, drink less alcohol, exercise someway and rest regularly. Making the effort in these areas cannot help but bring about a better you.

11. Get rid of valuable but needless “stuff” that reminds you too much of the past so that you can begin to create new memories in the future and keep moving forward instead of going backwards. It is better to live right up until death than die a little each day before you ever really lived.

12. Always have some sort of goal each week to look forward to enjoying. It doesn’t have to be grandiose like Nicholson’s all were with his dying hospital roommate in “Bucket List.” It can be a special dinner, movie, short trip, visit with a friend, exploring a new hobby or enjoying an older one. Or, a start might be to create your own low cost Bucket List.