When you’re young, making a bucket list – things you want to do before you die — feels like you’re choosing prizes that will arrive in the mail later. I’ll take fluency in Italian, please, a 300-lb bench press, and a swim in the Nile. I’ll definitely want to drive a Ferrari on the Autobahn at some point. How about a PhD?

The most famous list like this belonged to John Goddard, who made a truly audacious one at age 15 (ride an ostrich, land a plane on an aircraft carrier, study these twelve primitive cultures, learn those five musical instruments, etc.) and then spent his entire life doing most of them. He did 109 out of 127, many of which were clusters of smaller goals:

113. Become proficient in the use of a plane, motorcycle, tractor, surfboard, rifle, pistol, canoe, microscope, football, basketball, bow and arrow, lariat and boomerang

I made my first list on an otherwise crummy day, after reading about Goddard in Chicken Soup for the Soul. I loved that you could sit down and design an incredible future like this. I made my last one in 2009, as my twenties were coming to a close, and by then I was feeling my first hints of doubt about the whole concept.