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  • 6 Minute English, from BBC Learning English [Should we have a bucket list?]

  • Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English, I'm Neil.

  • And I'm Sam.

  • Have you always wanted to learn to dance the tango, do a magic trick, or skydive?

  • If so, perhaps you need a bucket list—a list of all the things you want to do before you die.

  • That's the topic of our program.

  • Bucket lists have been called "the greatest hits of your life"and have helped some people overcome anxiety and fear of following their dreams.

  • But they've also been accused of limiting the imagination by encouragingpeople to follow someone else's idea of the perfect life.

  • So, what would be on your bucket list, Neil?

  • Are you a skydiving kind of person?

  • Not really!

  • Bungee-jumping maybeas long as someone checked the elastic rope!

  • How about you?

  • One thing I've always wanted to do is swim with dolphins.

  • Well, you're not alone there, Sam, because swimming with dolphins is one of the most commonly included personal goals on bucket list.

  • But which of the following things do you think tops the list?

  • That's my quiz question for today.

  • Is it a) swimming with dolphins, b) getting a tattoo, or c) seeing the northern lights

  • I'll go for a) swimming with dolphins, one, because it's something I really want to do and two, because I've heard so many stories about how it improves your mental health.

  • Well, that was certainly true in the case of blogger Annette White.

  • She listed hundreds of things she wanted to accomplish, from learning Spanish to hanging out with penguins in Antarctica, as a way of improving her psychological wellbeing.

  • Here she is talking to Claudia Hammond for BBC Radio 4's program, All in the Mind.

  • You said that you started all this to try to help you overcome your anxiety andhas it done that?

  • It definitely has and I feel that the reason is because that promise to live my bucket list, really continuously pushes the comfort zone, you know, to its limits and beyond it.

  • So... every time I can have a chance to step out of my comfort zone, a little piece of that fear of the unknown is removed and replaced with a little piece of empowerment.

  • And by continuously doing that, the size of my fear bubble has gotten smaller.

  • Annette feels that choosing adventurous goals for her bucket list helps her step outside of her comfort zone.

  • The situations where she feels safe and comfortable but where her ability and determination are not really being tested.

  • Moving out of her comfort zone has helped Annette replace her feelings of fear with feelings of empowerment.

  • The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling her life.

  • Well, that all sounds pretty good to me but not everyone is convinced that bucket lists can really help people like Annette in the long run.

  • Here's clinical psychologist Linda Blair to explain why.

  • I'm not really in favour of bucket lists.

  • There are a couple of reasons.

  • Most of all, you're kind of fooling yourself with a bucket list.

  • We fear death, more than I think we fear anything else in our existence, because we can't predict it, and because we don't know what it's like because nobody comes back and tells us.

  • And when you create a bucket listsomething to do before you kick the bucketthe idea that you're giving yourself is that you can somehow control when and what death is going to be all about.

  • We only make sense of our lives at the end of it.

  • A bucket list takes you away from the chance to be spontaneous and I think it's so delicious to be able to say: "That's an opportunity, oh, I'll do that!"

  • Linda thinks some people use bucket lists as a coping strategy to try to control something uncontrollabledeath.

  • In this way they are fooling or deceiving themselves, trying to make themselves believe something they know is not really true.

  • And by having a checklist of adventures to tick off before they die, people might lose the chance to be spontaneous.

  • To act in a natural and impulsive way without planning.

  • Linda also uses an unusual expression, which gave "bucket list" its name in the first place.

  • A bucket list is all the things you want to do before you "kick the bucket"—an informal way of saying, 'die'.

  • 'Kick the bucket' is an old English expression that was even used by Shakespeare.

  • It refers to kicking the bucket away from under the feet of a hanging man, leaving him to drop to his death.

  • Well, anyway, I hope I don't kick the bucket before I've had a chance to tell you the correct answer to today's quiz.

  • Remember, I asked you which personal goal was most often included in bucket lists?

  • I said, a) swimming with dolphins

  • But the actual answer was c) seeing the northern lights.

  • Well, maybe we could combine the two in a single trip.

  • And then get a tattoo!

  • That would be spontaneous!

  • Today, we've been discussing bucket listslists of all the things you want to do before you kick the bucket, an informal way of saying die.

  • Bucket lists can be a great way to feel empoweredstronger and more in control of your life, because they take you out of your comfort zonecomfortable situations which are safe but not challenging.

  • But others think you're fooling or deceiving yourselfif you think bucket lists can really help you control your life.

  • In fact, they might even make you less spontaneousless able to act in natural, sudden and impulsive ways.

  • That's all from us for now.

  • Why not go and make some plans for all the things you'd like to achieve in your life?

  • And start having adventures before we see you next time here at 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

  • Bye.

  • Goodbye.

  • 6 Minute English, from BBC Learning English

  • Oh hi, thanks very much for watching out program, we hope you enjoyed it.

  • I'm sure you did.

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  • And that's it, we'll see you next time.

  • I'm getting eat me bagel, bye guys.

6 Minute English, from BBC Learning English [Should we have a bucket list?]

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