The Listing Bucketeer: The Wondrous Tapestry of Life

I’ve been thinking about opportunities.

My new bucket list is overflowing with them. Since I inaugurated the list this year, I’ve confronted several future opportunities, moved them into the present, seized them, savoured them, and celebrated them. But where do these opportunities go when I’ve ‘ticked them off’?

Then there are the missed opportunities: those fleeting instants where a word was not spoken, an action not taken. I liken them to dropped stitches in the tapestry of life. But what about the tapestry itself?

Over recent weeks, I’ve spent some time admiring my tapestry. Not focusing on the dropped stitches, but examining the warp and woof of the fabric itself: the colours and threads that would have been opportunities on bucket lists gone by.

It’s enlightening.

We’re used to displaying our accomplishments for the eye of someone else we’re trying to impress: be it a college application, a resume sent to a prospective employer, an immigration form, a list of accomplishments for the voters in a club, or in a country. We apply a filter, “What would they think noteworthy?” We inflate a few descriptions.

But what if we asked, “What has impressed me about my life so far? What has made it meaningful and memorable, to me? Without magnifying it, but just as it was.” We might even imagine what memories would pass before us if life were ending now.

Maintaining that perspective has been a challenge. Sometimes I reverted to viewing my memories and accomplishments as I imagined others might see them. But when I could really let my tapestry glow before my eyes, when I could just sit still and gaze at it for a few minutes, it gave me new insights on what was really important to me now – and what might be worth striving for in the future.

It’s an unexpected mixture of patterns and colours, that tapestry. There are opportunities that I chose, and some that chose me. Some of those didn’t look like opportunities at the time. Some took decades to bring to fruition; others came and went in a heartbeat. Some might look impressive to others. Some have meaning only to me. There are places where the colours are as vivid as the day I lived them. Other regions are so faded that I can no longer make out the design – not today, anyway. Another day, I expect to see whole patterns that I’ve yet to notice.

In a recent article, Steve Pavlina said, “If you want to know where your current path is taking you, look to your past.” He got me thinking. My past has been pretty amazing. If my future holds more like that, I’m up for it.

What did I learn from this exercise? Life is good – the tapestry is worth weaving. I can try to drop fewer stitches: speak those words, take that action. I can investigate new colours, plan new designs: add something exciting to that bucket list.

And sometimes I just need to hang the fabric on the wall and let it brighten the room.