I spent three years checking off bucket list items like I was preparing for a performance review. Skydiving in New Zealand. Check. Running a marathon. Check. Learning Portuguese. Check. Swimming with sharks in South Africa. Check.
Then I sat in my apartment one evening, scrolling through the photos, and felt nothing. Not accomplishment. Not joy. Just a weird hollowness, like I’d been collecting receipts for someone else’s life.
Nobody tells you this about bucket lists: they can become the ultimate procrastination tool for dealing with what actually matters.
The achievement trap nobody talks about
Here’s what happens. You create this list of extraordinary experiences—things that sound impressive at dinner parties, look great on Instagram, make you feel like you’re “living fully.” But somewhere along the way, the list becomes the point. Not the experiences themselves, but the checking off.
I watched a friend spend $15,000 on a two-week Antarctic expedition. When he got back, I asked him about it. He talked for twenty minutes about the logistics, the gear, the other people on the boat. When I asked what moment stood out most, he paused. “I guess seeing the penguins?” He sounded like he was asking me.
That’s when I recognized the pattern. We use bucket lists the same way some people use work—as a socially acceptable way to avoid harder questions. What do I actually want? What would make me respect myself tomorrow? What am I running from by constantly running toward the next experience?
The bucket list becomes a script. Someone else’s idea of what a life well-lived looks like. You inherit it from travel blogs, motivational speakers, that colleague who “quit everything to follow their dreams.” You don’t examine whether climbing Kilimanjaro actually matters to you or if you just like the idea of being someone who climbed Kilimanjaro.
Why we chase experiences like achievements
Think about how we talk about bucket list items. “I’ve always wanted to do that” usually means “I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who does that.” There’s a difference.
The psychology here is straightforward. Extraordinary experiences feel like shortcuts to identity. Instead of doing the slow work of figuring out who you are, you can just accumulate proof points. I’m adventurous—look, I went bungee jumping. I’m cultured—check out my photos from Machu Picchu. I’m brave—I swam with sharks.
But identity doesn’t work like that. You can’t purchase it through experiences any more than you can through possessions.
I know someone who spent a decade systematically conquering their bucket list. Every year, three or four major items checked off. When they finished the last item, they had a breakdown. Not because it was over, but because they realized they’d been so busy achieving experiences that they’d never asked why they wanted them.
The list had become a hedge against mortality, a way to feel productive about living without actually examining how they wanted to live.
The performance of living fully
Social media has made this worse. Now your bucket list isn’t just personal—it’s public. Each item becomes content, a story to tell, proof that you’re not wasting your life.
But here’s what I’ve noticed after working with high performers for years: the people who seem most alive rarely have bucket lists. They have interests, curiosities, things they’re drawn to. But they don’t approach life like a checklist.
A neighbor of mine, 67 years old, spends every Saturday morning teaching kids in the neighborhood how to work on bikes. Never been to Europe. Never jumped out of a plane. But when he talks about discovering why a derailleur isn’t shifting properly, his whole face changes. That’s presence. That’s actual living.
Compare that to the bucket list mindset, which is always focused on the next thing. Even while you’re swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, part of your brain is already thinking about that cooking class in Thailand.
What actually happens when you finish the list
Three people I know have essentially completed their bucket lists. All three went through the same progression: excitement while doing it, brief satisfaction after completing it, then a period of genuine confusion.
One described it perfectly: “I felt like I’d been running on a treadmill for years, and suddenly someone turned it off, and I didn’t know how to just walk.”
The bucket list had been providing structure, purpose, direction. Without it, they had to face the questions the list had been helping them avoid. What do I do when there’s nothing special to do? How do I find meaning in ordinary Tuesday afternoons? What happens when I stop performing my life and start living it?
This isn’t an argument against having goals or seeking new experiences. It’s about recognizing when the list becomes a crutch, when extraordinary experiences become a way to avoid ordinary presence.
A different way to think about experiences
Instead of a bucket list, try this: pay attention to what you’re genuinely curious about. Not what would impress others or what you think you should want, but what actually pulls at you.
Maybe it’s learning how sourdough starters work. Maybe it’s understanding why your grandfather’s generation approached work differently. Maybe it’s figuring out how to have difficult conversations without losing your temper.
These aren’t typical bucket list items. Nobody’s going to be impressed that you spent six months perfecting your sourdough technique. But that’s the point. When you stop performing your interests and start following them, different things happen.
You develop expertise instead of collecting experiences. You build relationships instead of accumulating stories. You create things instead of just consuming them.
The questions that matter more than any list
After abandoning my bucket list, I started asking different questions. Not “What do I want to do before I die?” but “What do I want to do this weekend?” Not “What would make a great story?” but “What would make me respect myself tomorrow?”
These questions led to smaller, quieter choices. Calling a friend I’d been avoiding. Finally fixing the broken drawer in my kitchen. Reading books about subjects I found difficult instead of just interesting. Starting work on that book about quiet behaviors that drive outcomes.
None of these would make anyone’s bucket list. But they’ve led to more genuine satisfaction than any of those checked-off adventures.
Bottom line
Bucket lists aren’t inherently bad. But they become dangerous when they substitute for actual introspection, when they let us feel productive about life without examining what we actually want from it.
The real question isn’t “What do I want to do before I die?” It’s “How do I want to live while I’m alive?” And that question often doesn’t have bucket list answers. It has daily answers, small choices, ordinary moments of presence.
