Lists

I just read an interesting post on EarlWorld. I like Earl's blog because he seems to devote time to surfing out little off-the-wall niches on the web and posting them, and our tastes seem to coincide, which saves me from surfing, which I'm not crazy about. In this post, he discussed the etymology of January, it being named for "janua", latin for door, and the door-related God, Janus. Janus is represented facing both forward and backward. Love etymology, loved this tidbit.
Then Earl goes on to relate a talk his company sponsored by Phil Keoghan which also touched on the idea of No Opportunity Wasted, and making a "life list" of things to accomplish in a lifetime, and then, of course, accomplishing them.
When I was about 14, I developed a life plan. It had a plan A and a plan B. I had serious reservations that plan A would never get accomplished, not because it wasn't feasible but because I was catastrophically insecure. I was worried I would have to resort to plan B (join a religious order). Honestly, I couldn't see that there might be more than those two options. Each plan had a list of goals and timelines, some goals I went ahead and accomplished as a teenager (because I wasn't limited when it came to library research). The plan actually seriously ruined my life until recently. It included being married by 22, being done having children by 30, all this while becoming an orthopaedic surgeon. My heavy dose of isecurity was not wholly unrelated to my parents' certainty I would not be able to get there. They were, ultimately, proven right, but not because of lack of potential, though they feel that their assessment is the correct one. I simply didn't know what all my options were. I had also explored becoming an archeologist, an architect and a vet, but my father was positive a woman could be none of those things. When I had chanced "medicine" he liked it, but used it as a reason to chide any grade lower than the best. But I digress. That plan meant that as I strayed from it, my insecurity sky-rocketed, and to this day, I still have the little idiot light on my mental dashboard flashing "you're running behind/astray." Luckily, it's small, and since I can't seem to hardwire it out of existence, I regularly place more black electrical tape over it.
After a life-changing run of therapy, I am now a very different person. 1) I am perpetually amazed at the number of options there are in life. 2) Making a plan can make it very scary to jump on chance occurrences in unplanned directions. 3) We have much less control than we like to think. (There are, of course, more conclusions, but they don't all relate).
Now I realize a list is not a plan, though it becomes one when it needs to be actualized, doesn't it? I have lots of lists. The list of wonderful books and movies that I want Chloe to see/read with me one day. The list of items that can best be found at each different grocery store here (all of which used to be under one roof at DFC). The list of mending/sewing/embroidery I have ready to go. The list of relatives I need to add to the genealogy. The list of books I can sink my teeth into now that my stupid magazine pile is back down again. The list (haha) goes on...
My issue with starting a life list is that there is an infinite number of things that could be added to it, but a finite amount of time and resources, which I think makes it an exercise in frustration. While I make resolutions each year (make new desserts and talk to old friends regularly) it's not the same. In my head I know that once Chloe is old enough, we shall start traveling, starting from easy destinations like the Phillippines when she's still a little kid and increasing in intensity until we reach Bhutan in her late teens. And I want to re-learn how to sail, maybe also learn to hang-glide. Why am I so put off by the idea of jotting these down into a formalized list? Why does it feel like putting it to paper is such a limiting act?