When Tomorrow Becomes Today, Will You Be Ready?

Today I’d like to talk about another “Lifestyle” topic (if that’s even a thing). The Bucket List, or as some like to call it: Things I want to do before I die.

Why, you may ask? No, I am not thinking that I will die anytime soon. The main reason I remembered the bucket list was because I lost mine that I did a few years ago.
Bonus tip: Save something you want to keep in a cloud or in an external disc. I lost my previous computer… I lost my bucket list. Shit happens.

So, first things first, what’s a bucket list?

• I think it’s self explanatory when I said AKA Things I want to do before I die but basically, it is a list of things you want to do/achieve/ in the future (near future or whenever really). It can be anything you want from events to attend, races, travels, learning a language, etc. There is no right answer or rules you have to follow. After all it’s YOUR bucket list!

 

Second, why have a bucket list?

I can sum it up in 4 reasons:

1. I love having something to look forward to, being it an adventure or learning something new. As a dreamer myself, I am always thinking of new plans, new adventures, new challenges, but unfortunately I can’t do them all at once. There were classes and now there is a job and as you know, sadly, working doesn’t go hand in hand with having a huge amount of holidays (unlike being an University student).
   Funny thing: When you are younger, you have time but you don’t have money. When you are older, you have money but you don’t have time. Well, we gotta live somewhere in between that.
2. Whenever you make your own list, you start to realize the things you really want to achieve/do, and the things you really don’t look forward to. You end up getting in your brain a sense of commitment to it. And at the same time, unconsciously you set priorities.
3. Keeping track of the things you achieved so far as well. When I look to my bucket list and see the things that I have completed I get a sense of well being and think that I am living the life I want to live.I made some plans and I am turning them real, and that’s an AWESOME feeling!
4. Lastly, from time to time, you can check it and get “back on track” with the things you aim to achieve/do. Because, even though you could have all your plans in your head, it’s much easier to have them written down and remember them from time to time in order to be able to pursue them. And it’s not a thing to do in 1 year or 2 (if you can it would be awesome though), but it’s for an entire lifetime.

 

For me, having a bucket list is writing down in a list a bunch of things I want to do in my life and that I think will bring more happiness to my life. The list is not untouchable, and every day (or year) I can add more things or delete previous choices that I no longer feel like doing.

 

I challenge you to do your own list, what are your dreams, what are your objectives as a person and as professional in your job, what do you think will bring you joy doing, or what can give you that adrenaline rush you are craving for? And after you finish it, go and look for some other people’s list online and check if you just find something that you definitely want to do. A friend of mine talked me 2 weeks ago about a thing and it just came from nowhere to one of the things I want to do the most: Rickshaw Run. You up for an adventure? Check it if you have an affair with adrenaline and with the unknown.

Example of organising your list. I divided it into categories. Here is mine (but you can organise it the way you want): Life, Sports, Travelling, Adrenaline Rushes , Minimalism, Events to attend, Entrepreneurship; Medical Carreer(job related) , Random

Lastly, in my opinion having a  bucket list is much more than having something to put a tick on, for me what brings me  the most joy is enjoying the journey of achieving it after dreaming it as long as the feeling of being able to overcome my fears and do something I only dreamed of.

Challenge yourself!You will see that you can do much more than you actually think you can.

Au revoir! Oui, I am still in France doing Workaway. Well, actually no, I am in Switzerland at the moment but I just arrived today after hitchhiking 180km with 5 different people. You will probably never read this but: Thank you for the rides!

Where is life leading you ?

A long time has passed since I last wrote something here, but as I was walking in the mountains of the beautiful French Alps, I got the urge to write again. I don’t write thinking that I am going to influence someone to do something different or copy the things I like doing. I do it because I believe that sometimes people can relate or even because when I write I tend to reflect on the things I did and that in the hurry of everyday life I didn’t have time/will to.

As you can read in my profile, I was a medical student when I started writing the blog on my 5th year. Two years have passed and guess what? I’m a doctor now (shiiieeet, just saying the word seems to bring more responsibility to it) but I am currently “waiting” for January to start working. While all my colleagues are studying for an exam in November to decide which speciality they are going to, in Portugal, I decided not to. That decision comes from the fact that I always wanted to work abroad for some years and experience new stuff so I chose Switzerland to do so.

Why Switzerland?

• My main reason is that in Switzerland you end up “building” your speciality. There is no 5 years straight obligation as in Portugal to finish it. You have a contract with a hospital of 6 months, 1 year or 2 years (that can be extended), and when you are not in a contract you “can do whatever you want”.
• This “whatever you want” for me means enrolling in humanitarian missions as a Doctor and help as I can. Médecins Sans Frontiers is a possibility or joining other NGO’s in the fields to help in what I can.
• In Portugal, it’s not impossible to do the same, however it might be much harder to do so. There are always lack of doctors to fill the Emergency scales and wards and 1 less doctor in the team makes a difference, so it’s rather hard to be able to leave the team even with a license without payment.
• Another thing that I would like to do as well is to enrol in different post-graduations that I feel would be a plus for me such as a Doctor and what I want to achieve. Management of Healthcare and being a doctor in adventure scenarios (be it in a Formula 1 Car race or expedition medicine in the wirlderness).

For all these reasons and a few more not stated (but not as important), I felt that Switzerland is the place I want to do my Residency in. Most people ask me what you need to do so or if I am not afraid to go there solo? If I plan to come back after I do my specialisation?

I gotta be honest, when I first started being serious about it I got pretty scared with the decision. Since I began University I thought that I wanted to do the most different things that I could with my life until I was 30 (don’t ask me why this psychological barrier), I always thought that after that was time to settle down, have a family, wife, kids and that it wouldn’t be so easy to just buy a ticket and go discover the world or start a volunteering journey of 1 or 2 months while leaving “them” back.

This crippled into my head and I also start thinking that leaving the comfort zone of Portugal also meant that probably If I were to find someone would probably be in Switzerland, that if I did probably we would settle in Switzerland and that coming back to Portugal was probably out of equation. That scares me a little(probably a lot), because I am a person that needs people, I love my friends, I love my family, I love hanging out with people, I love talking basically.

Would I be able to survive with nothing of that? How would it be if in 8 years I didn’t meet anyone there and I come back to Portugal, aged 33 and all my friends have family already and kids?

Well, that’s when the other part of my brain striked and told me: Ricardo, you have lived in different parts of the world, you managed to make friends, you managed to meet other people, do different stuff, and live a happy and healthy life in different situations. So why would it be different in Switzerland?

That thought stayed in my mind and I started making an effort to go to Switzerland. I started a French course, I made my CV, I asked for recommendation letters from people I worked with, and I finally started to send e-mails. So far the answers haven’t been great but I will keep on sending them and hoping for a place to start my residency. I am super excited about it.

Last thing I did was moving to France for 1 month to practice my French. That’s from where I am writing, in a house in the beautiful village of Lac du Bourget where I am doing workaway.

So, that’s it. We will see how it goes. Nothing is definitive. If I don’t like Switzerland I can come back to Portugal. If I do like it, let’s see how it goes. No planning ahead, no preoccupations, no stress, JUST LIVE and adapt accordingly ! 😀 There are no things as failures, there are attempts that you make that can not turn as you expected but are always something you learn from.

SWITZERLAND, here I go. And you, do you have plan?

PS – I started this post to write about workaway. Well, guess it will have to stay for another time.