The internet is filled with articles proclaiming they’ve found X amount of things you NEED to do during your time on Earth. Your bucket list. You’ve probably encountered a few of them before, and maybe even considered booking a sherpa and planning a Mount Everest expedition.
Hold off on that for now, because we’re here to suggest 6 things that you can do today that can inspire you to break free as much as any item on a bucket list. Feel free to take some notes and share your own!
Choose a direction and drive
In the age of GPS and a seemingly endless amount event-planning texts, it’s a rare occurrence to simply pick a direction and head into uncharted territory without a plan or an itinerary. But there’s a reason the ideal is so appealing; it brings a sense of unpredictability and spontaneity into an otherwise predictable lifestyle. So shake it up, drive somewhere you’ve never heard of, and return with a tale to tell.
Reach out and make a story
“We haven’t hung out in a while. Let’s go on adventure.” Two sentences, infinite potential. With the first line, you catch up with an old friend and admit that you’ve drifted. With the second, you suggest an immediate and exciting way to fix that. What’s next is limited only to your imaginations: from cliff diving to dive bars, there’s no better way to reignite an old friendship and create some new stories at the same time.
Source: Flickr (BLMOregon)
Into the wild
If you’ve never gone camping, find a friend to show you while the weather is still good for it. If you’re a camping veteran, choose a new spot, or bring a newbie. The point is, you’re always one camping trip away from a host of new experiences and moments that you literally cannot have in the city. When’s the last time you fondly remembered a night spent scrolling through Facebook? We thought so.
Live and loud
Every city has signposts and bulletin boards buried in posters for live events, local bands, and other staples of a city’s nightlife. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to choose any of these events at random and attend it sight unseen. No research, no pulling up the band’s songs online; just you, a friend or two, and your combined abilities to have a good time anywhere.
Source: Getty Images
Master a skill
Do something with your hands. Learn to play something. Teach yourself how to create something from nothing. Create a skill in your life where there was none, and start today. From simple card tricks to how to shatter a glass bottle with a nickel (it’s true) and rip an apple or a phone book in half with your bare hands (also true), start training a skill that will add another feather to your cap and another chapter to your book of amazing stories.
Connect with a stranger
It has become so easy to bury our noses into our phones and disappear from everyone else around us. Instead, put yourself out there and reach out to someone you’ve never talked to before. Try to make a genuine connection where there was none before. You could walk away with a new friend, or you could pocket another story to tell your friends later. It sounds win-win to us.
If you’re crossing items off our Anti-Bucket List, don’t keep it to yourself; break free, tell the tale, and share your story!