Bucket Lists and Buffett Lists

There’s something intoxicating about a bucket list. The name itself is cheeky and rebellious—do these things before you kick the bucket. It suggests urgency, vibrancy, life-before-death. Bucket lists seduce us with a sense of possibility: Swim in Icelandic hot springs. Walk the Great Wall. Eat something unpronounceable in a night market at midnight.

The irony, of course, is that the more you tick off, the more your list grows. Bucket lists have this strange ability to multiply desires. Climb one mountain, and suddenly you want to climb ten. Visit one country, and suddenly you have 193 left to see. It’s a strange kind of expanding satisfaction—every fulfilled dream stretches the edges of what you now believe is possible.

At their best, bucket lists spark joy and courage. They say: “Don’t waste your one wild and precious life.” But at their worst, they breed a restless discontent, a subtle panic that you’re not doing enough. They whisper: “There’s always more.”

Enter Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, quietly pushing his spectacles up his nose and scribbling a very different philosophy. No exotic hot springs. No hot air balloon rides. Just 25 things you care about. Circle five. Now avoid the other 20 like the plague.

It’s ruthless. Unsentimental. Almost cold. But also—startlingly wise.

Because the truth is, we only get so many yeses in a lifetime. Everything else must become a no—not because it’s unworthy, but because it’s not the thing you’re building your life around.

Buffett’s approach forces clarity. It’s not a list of dreams but a latticework of focus. Not about crossing things off, but about digging into a few things with undivided attention. And that’s where it starts to feel liberating. Because those twenty things you’re tempted to pursue “on the side”? They’re the ones most likely to dilute your energy. Not the obvious distractions, but the compelling near-misses—the ones that keep you busy without ever making you whole.

And this contrast—Bucket List vs. Buffett List—isn’t just about fitting in as much possible before our lives end. It’s about identity: Who am I? What do I value? Who do I serve?

Bucket lists are ever-hungry creatures,
gobbling dreams and spitting them into
infinity.
You start with ten items:
Dance in the rain,
See Machu Picchu,
Taste a mango on a Philippine island.
But each box checked births five new boxes,
and before you know it, you’re
buying scuba gear,
learning Portuguese,
and googling “rarest bird migrations in the world.”

The spirit behind them is sparky, animus,
vocational, visceral—
an ember of life’s urgency.
It whispers: This will make you whole.
You listen.
And then, suddenly,
you’re in Paraguay.

But Buffett lists,
say otherwise:
Ruthlessly prioritize.
Write your 25 dreams in bold ink,
circle five with a steady hand.
The five are sacred—
a sharp-edged focus for your time.
The remaining twenty?
Banish them.
They are sirens,
beautiful distractions that will drown you.

“No,” says Buffett,
“is the most powerful tool of the really successful.”
Even to good things,
even to tempting things,
even to things that matter,
you must say no
if they aren’t the deepest yes.

Bucket lists expand horizons,
always wider, wider,
until the list itself
becomes the journey—
an endless tide of possibility.
You might find yourself wondering
if the point was to cross items off
or just to keep dreaming
until your feet leave the earth.

Buffett lists focus the flood
to a stream you can drink.
They are mental models,
a latticework of clarity and calm.

For every yes, a thousand no’s.
For every no,
the sharpened edge of purpose.

And yet, in both lists lies
the same ache:
loveliness that deepens,
and deepens,
and deepens again.
The older you grow,
the richer the world seems—
richer and more unbearable,
because you know
you’ll never taste it all.

So perhaps you stand,
clutching your list—
bucket or Buffett—
knowing you’ll never feel done.
The sky doesn’t feel done.
The sea doesn’t feel done.
And neither will you,
because the loveliest things
always whisper:
Stay.

Based on Kate C. Bowler and Oliver Burkeman,
Everything Happens Season 13 Episode 18
https://katebowler.com/podcasts/new-year-same-me/