The Bucket List

"A shot every day," is written on the first slip of paper I fish out of the letterbox. 

It was just after quarter past twelve, at the birthday party for my 24th. In my shared flat room was a large part of my favourite people. On the letterbox hung a slip of paper I had written on which said: "Things to do until I turn 25". The corresponding task for my guests was to write me small slips of paper throughout the evening until midnight with things I should have done by my 25th birthday. The evening was cheerful and lovely, and a beer or two were probably responsible for one or two of the slips. Like the one I'm holding in my hands right now. I still have to smile, perhaps the whole thing could be scaled down to a week, my liver will be grateful. What I'm most pleased about are the slips that really represent a challenge and at the same time promise wonderful experiences, such as: "Traverse a country and hitchhiking is the only means of transport allowed" or "Write down a positive thought every day" or "Start a conversation with a stranger (a long one)". I write a few things down myself and put them in the letterbox, a few things I've been meaning to do for a while. For example, take part in a poetry slam, find a voluntary position or submit my tax return. Loss carryforward, here I come.

There are many suggestions and ideas for bucket lists, not just my interactive one: "Things to do before you turn 30", "Things you should have done as a Würzburg resident", "Things a student should have done" and many more. The internet and in particular online magazines for millennials are full of them. But is it worth creating a bucket list for your studies and if so, what should be on it? Or should your studies rather remain a lucky dip with uncertain contents? First of all: it will be anyway! Promise! Bucket list or not. Then the bucket list should not become another burnout-causing to-do list that makes the most terrible oxymoron of the 21st century a reality: leisure stress. So what could go on such a bucket list? A few non-binding suggestions from me are: learning a new language, attending courses that are not part of your own subject and earn credit points, swimming in the Main at night (but be careful, there are biting fish in the Main), talking to as many strange but interesting-seeming people as possible, being able to tell a joke really well and being able to cook a dinner for 5 people at restaurant quality. It's definitely worth getting friends involved in the list. Because they can lure you out of your own comfort zone and for example would let you go shopping walking backwards. All in all, such a bucket list can help you set goals and wishes outside of your studies and find out what else you want to take from your studies besides credit points and a university degree.

Ten months have now passed: the tax return has been submitted, Austria and northern Italy have been traversed by hitchhiking and the list with positive sentences was already abandoned after two days. My bucket list hangs on the wall above my sofa, the experienced "challenges" are covered with a proof photo.

At this point, a small note on the bucket list: there are also points that, at the end of the day, are an experience, but perhaps rather an experience that you would put in the drawer "Lesson Learned" instead of "Definitely repeat". So I had to find out that a week of fruitarian diet – a form of nutrition that allows an even more reduced food spectrum than veganism – is not only super time-consuming and exhausting, but also confined me to bed for almost a week with a subsequent cold. Today I'm going to plant a tree. And yes, the slip with the "task" came from a friend in my letterbox. But it was also already on my very own bucket list! 

Viktoria Horn