If you’re like me, you wake up almost every morning to another to-do list. Sometimes it’s a new one. Most often, it’s the one that didn’t get finished yesterday. Personally, I get a lot of satisfaction out of the task alone, i.e. making a to-do list, but my motivation takes an immediate nosedive once the list making is complete. Actually having to complete the tasks feels like torture. I can imagine it feeling like an unbelievable accomplishment to cross off the last thing and throw the list away. I have to imagine it, in fact, because I don’t think I have ever done that. Instead, I find joy in somewhat useless accomplishments. For example:

TO DO List:

1. Make a to-do list.  ✔

Yes! Winning!

Ultimately, the list proves helpful and encouraging for a short amount of time, but once I decide to “take a break,” that list is destined to remain in its current unfinished state for eternity. It is just how it is.

So, this morning I started thinking. What if life itself had a to-do list? And, what if it was one actually meant to be repeated from the beginning every single day?  In other words, you woke up to the same to-do list all over again, and you welcomed it. I suppose this might already exist, but we hide it behind other concepts: life goals, purpose, your calling, your career, etc. What I have in mind, though, is much simpler. It doesn’t require you to make long-term decisions, or force you to know right now where you want to be in ten years. It is instead a list of daily accomplishments that are meant to be crossed off repeatedly. More importantly, even the process of trying to cross them off proves satisfying alone. As I thought more about this, I realized there was nothing stopping me from making my own life to-do list. And, as you now know, the opportunity to even make a list would add an accomplishment to my day.

Thus, my life to-do list:

1. TRANSFORM  YOUR LIFE

I have come to learn that every day is another chance to make my life everything I want it to be. It doesn’t mean I’m never happy with how things are, or that I’m never satisfied or content. It just means that I believe true happiness is a daily commitment. Some days we adhere to the commitment fully, and others we fall short. Every day, we wake up and immediately we are faced with decisions. What we decide will affect how we move throughout the day, and throughout our lives. Our decisions will leave us feeling one way or another, good or bad, proud or full of regret, happy or not. So, I want my to-do list to encourage me to make the choices that will lead me to falling asleep a happier, stronger, more fulfilled person than I was when I woke up. I want to always be open to transformation, ways to grow, change, learn, adapt, survive, and feel alive. I want to feel my life transform in some way- big or small- on a daily basis. I don’t want to feel static. I don’t want to feel like time is passing with no purpose. I want to leave my mark on each day, and I want each day to leave its mark on me. So, at the top of the list is the goal to accept the ways life can move me along and to enjoy it.

2. CHANGE THE WORLD

I truly believe that one of the best things about feeling good is wanting others to feel it, too; but, I’ve learned that the process of getting there is not an easy one. Too often, we give to others for the wrong reasons. We give to receive, and when we don’t, we feel immediate resentment. We start to make dreadful comparisons, feel sorry for ourselves, maybe even start to feel entitled, and all of it does nothing to make us or anybody else feel any better. It is easy- too easy- to get caught up in ourselves. We let our problems affect how we treat others. We let our own insecurities keep us from being the best we can be. Whether we want to admit it or not, approaching life this way, I believe, is what causes a lot of our problems in the first place. Happiness is all too often stifled by negativity, and I think we allow ourselves to remain blind to it. It is the moment we choose to see it and address it that lets us change the world.

I have learned that how you treat yourself direct impacts how you treat others. I always cared to be a good person, a good family member, a good friend, but even I admit that, for years, I was not nearly as good as I should have been. When I started to take better care of myself- and thus stopped holding other people responsible for my own problems- a whole new life opened up to me. Negative feelings such as resentment, jealousy, self-pity, self-hatred, and even apathy moved aside and allowed room for kindness, acceptance, security, love, and connection. I could finally be happy for others without feeling sorry for myself. I could give to others without feeling empty. I could celebrate my family and friends without feeling jealous or discouraged by something missing in my life. I could take everything in, be surrounded by positive light, and simply bask in its warmth instead of feeling like my flicker was threatened somehow. To share life in this way with others is an amazing feeling. It requires a relentless commitment, and even then you might go through rough patches. After all, we’ve already discussed how easy it is to get caught up in ourselves.

Still, imagine if every person on the planet cared to share life with others in this way on a daily basis. Don’t you think the world would change? Perhaps we will never know how far our individual choices can go, but I personally would prefer to assume that I have the power to change the world in at least one small way, than to believe that I don’t have any power to do so at all.

3. THINK

We don’t think enough. I want to think every single day, and not just about life’s daily stressors. I don’t want every thought to be about something else I can’t forget to do. Instead, I want time to just think about life, about people I love, what makes me happy. I want to think creatively, poetically, critically. I want to come up with ideas, think about things that make me laugh, think through memory lane, or think up another big adventure. I want to be consciously aware of how I’m feeling, where I am at mentally, how I’m doing physically and emotionally, and how I’m talking to myself. I want my day to be a thoughtful one, even if the thought is that I shouldn’t overthink so many things. Trust me, that happens, too.

4. LAUGH FROM YOUR GUT

Laughter is what has kept me alive for thirty years. I think food, love, shelter, water, etc., have helped, but I still give most of the credit to laughter. I don’t know if there is any better feeling than having a completely uncontrollable laughing attack. If there is, I personally haven’t felt it. People have learned to laugh through so many different things that it has simply become necessary. In some ways, laughter protects us. In others, it provides us comfort. There are times it might embarrass us, but it can also be the best kind of forgiveness. It is the best way to connect and to love. In my opinion, laughing from your gut is one of the truest feelings of happiness one can ever feel, and it is something I would gladly aim for every single day.

5. HAVE EARTH-SHATTERING SEX

Let me start by saying I am completely supportive of all of us literally having earth-shattering sex every single day, but this “task” on my life’s to-do list goes above and beyond what you might be picturing.

When I think about literal earth-shattering sex, my mind goes crazy. My body explodes with various feelings- some tingle, some tickle, some crawl up my back and sit in my shoulders, some make my skin hot, others give me the chills, and there are some that make me feel exposed and uncomfortable, but in the best of ways. Earth-shattering sex is the part of the movie that makes a theater stand still, it’s the story you tell your friends the next day, it’s the lasting memory that distracts you from the mundane, it makes you notice and appreciate tiny details you ignored before, it is something you will never forget, and leaves a perma-smile on your face to the point where your cheeks get tense and you have to laugh it off. It inspires you, makes you feel alive and in control, and convinces you that you can do anything. Earth-shattering sex is not the kind that leaves you with doubt or insecurity. No way! It’s the kind that catapults you into feeling beautiful, sexy, free, understood, taken care of, perhaps a bit mysterious, and wildly exciting.

Basically, to me, earth-shattering sex is a feeling. It’s the idea that we should live life in a way that is spontaneous, wild, free from inhibitions. We should feel comfortable in our skin, alive, full of expression, and engulfed in the moment. Time should stop every now and then, and we should enjoy just how good living life can feel. Maybe it includes actually having amazing sex- why not?!- but it is more than that. It is the desire to live life in a way where we expect something epic to happen any minute, and when it does we will fully embrace all the ways it makes us feel incredible.

6. TAKE A LIFE-ALTERING NAP

You know those moments when you sink into the perfect cat nap, almost as if your body is complete dead weight and you don’t move, and then you wake up after just the right amount of time with new perspective? I think we should try to give ourselves that every day. Maybe it really is the perfect nap, or maybe it’s just a few minutes to sit down with yourself and take a few deep breaths before carrying on. The point is to allow for a perspective shift, to allow our body and mind to catch up to each other, and to live balanced. When we give ourselves a moment to realign and refocus our energy, the whole day can change. I don’t want to waste too many days spinning in circles. I want to travel.

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There you have it: my life’s daily to-do list. I feel better already. Check!