Things to do before I die

Over the past couple of weeks I have come across a number of lists people have made identifying a number of targets people have set for there life, I quite like this idea so I have decided to create one of my own.

I think by having your ambitions, dreams, milestones or whatever you want to call it written down or at least well defined in your mind you will be more likely to achieve them. These aren't things such as get a job or get married there much grander aims that can help shape your life by encouraging you to make decisions or take opportunities you may not have otherwise taken.

A little over a month ago I came across Randy Pausch when he sadly died of cancer, in amongst the tributes there were links to a lecture he gave at CMU titled the last lecture, there he gave this inspirational lecture during the last months of his life. The lecture focused on his life, covering his career, ambitions and achievements and is well worth watching. The point of mentioning it is that he started the lecture with a list of his childhood dreams, this is something I never had as a child or at any point in the 23 years until now, I am not sure why I guess I have never been much of a dreamer or looked towards the future like others have.

Over the weekend I started thinking of what would be on my list, because I don't have childhood dreams to work on I have had to think of things I would love to do but also things that are ambitious, the first one I came up with was to go into space and to see the earth from space. On the surface this seems a little extreme but I genuinely think that I will be able to achieve this in my lifetime, in the next few years the first tourist flights to space will take place, just imagine how this industry will develop over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, hopefully well within my lifetime.

The other two things I came up with were to do go skydiving and to fly a helicopter, I think jumping out of an airplane and going in to free fall would be an incredible experience and something that shouldn't be to hard to achieve. The third item is something I have wanted to do for several years now, I have thought for a while that being able to fly a helicopter would be a really cool and possible useful ability; I would love a helicopter license to put in my wallet with my driving license, thats assuming they come in a credit card size. This dream will probably be down to money rather then circumstance, but I will be on the lookout for any potential helicopter opportunities in the future.

These 3 things are all I have come up with so far, I am going to try and add to this list and hopefully use it as a guide of some kind for my life, there might not be much point to it but at least I will have an answer if anyone asks me what I want to do in life.