Make plans, just don't fall in love with them.

Inspired by my beautiful friend Sam I am going to write a few "bucket lists" of my own. I don't find them morbid, or negative in any way. After all, all we are promised is this moment. It may seem silly to plan for the future with that outlook, but I think of it this way: Make plans, just don't fall in love with them. I heard Wayne Dyer speak those words a few years ago and I can't even describe how liberating they are. I am a list freak, anyone who knows me well knows how obsessed I am with lists and calendars. I write them in the back of all my notebooks, in the back of books, on my desk calendar, in my blackberry...etc. etc. My life is a series of lists, or seems so at times. I think I get this from my mother.

At first I thought that perhaps living in the moment and making so many plans might be mutually exclusive, but now I take the view described above. I make plans, but I don't fall in love with them. Plans change. I once heard Wayne Dyer explain it with this little story: He was talking to a friend of his who was a doctor and the man was expressing how truly unhappy he was in his career. Wayne asked the man, "Well, why are you a doctor?" And the man replied "Oh, I've always wanted to be a doctor." Wayne told him that he didn't sound like he wanted to be a doctor anymore and asked when he had decided to become a doctor. The man told him that he made the decision when he was 18 and then started down the path. Wayne proceeded to ask "Would you ask an 18 year old for career advice?" and the man replied, "Of course not!" to which Wayne answered, "then why trust the career advice you gave yourself when you were 18?"

I think this sums it up brilliantly. Plans change. Circumstances change. YOU change! And we have to allow for these changes. However, in the mean time, we can make plans, set goals, dream, reach for the stars, and be overjoyed when things go our way, and realize how great things can be when we allow plans to grow and change with us. So, in honor of this mindset I'm going to make a few plans. The first is a Seattle Bucket list.

Now, I only have one year left at PLU, and since I'm not applying to any grad schools in Washington I'm pretty sure I will be leaving the area when I graduate in the spring. Thus, there are a few things I want to do before I leave:

• Go to Experience Music Project.
• Take the Underground Tour of Seattle
• Eat at Cafe Flora
• Go back to Mt Rainier
• Go to a club in Seattle (and/or a gay bar/club)
• Go to Pike Place Market again.
• Go on an OR event
• Find a way to get out of one of my science requirements.

I'm sure the list will grown (and hopefully also shrink as I cross things off) as the year progresses.

Now, I also want to make an overall "Bucket List," so here goes!

• Get into an amazing MFA program for Theatre or Dance (or BOTH!)
• Get my PhD in Theatre
• Perform on Broadway
• Be in a movie
• Live in France
• Live in England
• Find a wonderful (possibly foreign) man who isn't in theatre, but appreciates it (vegetarian would be nice too)
• Choreograph something that truly moves people
• Cure myself of Diabetes
• Eat at Cafe Gratitude
• Live in Hawaii
• Stay in an Ashram in India
• Practice Yoga and Meditation Daily
• Have a dog
• Write my young adult fantasy series
• And many, many more marvelous things.

Hmmm....how shall I start working toward these today....