The Bucket List

The Bucket List is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Rob Reiner. The main plot follows two terminally ill men (Nicholson and Freeman) on their road trip with a wish list of things to do before they "kick the bucket." Their bucket list was to witness something truly majestic, Help a complete stranger for the common good, Laugh till I cry, Drive a Shelby Mustang, Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world, Get a tattoo, Skydiving, Visit Stonehenge, Spend a week at the Louvre, See Rome, Dinner at La Chevre d'Or, See the Pyramids, Get back in touch (previously "Hunt the big cat", added after being earlier added and crossed off), To visit the Taj Mahal, India, Hong Kong, Victoria Falls, Serengeti, Ride the Great Wall of China and To Try DMT.

I wonder how many of us will sit back in our older years and say to ourselves that we had “Quite a Life”, why do we always postpone the things that are important to us? Why do we not live when we can? Why does worrying about anything and everything take precedence in our lives? Why do we wait for something to happen, to remind us of what we can not do anymore? why don’t we enjoy the same things when we can? why do we take everything in life for granted? Articulating a bucket list, a list of things we want to do before our time comes, should be a top priority for each and every one of us. Let us live life fully satisfied, let control the things within our control and not worry about things we can’t control. Let us aim to live simple lives with extraordinary dreams, let us seek to touch the stars, while still trying to leave every place a little better than we found it. Let us aim to live in comfortable homes with a care in hearts for the homeless, let us live today to make somebody’s tomorrow better. Let us all be a bit better this holiday season than what we were the last. Let us light somebody’s life with the joys that pass all understanding. Let us pray for somebody else’s problems. Let us share our joys with someone who has no joys or very little joys. Let us give someone the purpose to live this Christmas season. Let us show our thanks to people around us for being around us. Let us spend this holiday season with a song in our hearts and a dance in our footsteps. Let us make a difference however small in somebody’s life so that this holiday season is never the same for that someone.

Effective Habits to Keep a Marriage alive. PART -IV

• Talk, talk and talk about anything and everything, make your spouse your best friend - Relive your courtship period, didn't you want to be with him/her all the time, didn't you talk about nothing for hours on end, didn't you always want to break that happy news or sad news to him/her first. Isn't that special somebody your spouse today, be yourself with your spouse, be honest with him/her, for a relationship based on honesty is a stronger relationship than one based on lies and deception. Make your spouse your best friend, then everything in the relationship will take a turn for the sky.
• Manage your finances together - I've heard quite a few relationships going dark because of money, its either that the husband is reckless in his spending or the wife is careless about her earnings. Treat finance matters in a relationship like you would treat a business, collectively discuss your revenues, your expenses, and discuss what is necessary and what is not. When you sit together to face common problems with a hope to find solutions it brings you closer, there always needs to be a compromise achieved, for sacrifice and give & take is also parts of this great institution called marriage.
• Collective responsibility - It is very easy for one to blame the other when something goes wrong, but it takes a whole lot of courage to take responsibility for one's errors. Don't be quick to blame instead find out what can be done to correct the wrong, don't blame each other instead take collectiveresponsibility in every wrong, for then the recovery has already started.

Effective Habits to Keep a Marriage alive. PART -III

• Celebrate your spouse's positives and manage their negatives - How many times do we criticise our spouses for their negatives and let their positives go unnoticed? Not all Men/Women are alike, Thank God for that, so don't expect your partner to be like somebody else, except them for who they are, with their pluses and minises, it is a lot easier to be critical of one another's faults than looking at each other's own faults. In every relationship the partners should know each other strengths and weakness and work around them, Lets all never let a opportunity go by to tell your spouse how well he/she can do something, or how well they have done something, being appreciate is a happy emotion, lets spread it. Manage the faults and the weakness you find in your spouse, help them to overcome it, thereby you are not only helping them, but are helping yourself, feel as if you have accomplished something. Celebrate your spouse's strength and manage their weakness together is the key to be happy in a long term relationship.
• Make this relationship your top priority - If this relationship is important to you then show it. Don't put your spouse or your plans together after everything else, if you treat your relationship like it is the last thing on your list then it will become the last thing in your life. If your life depended on this relationship then behave like it does. I have known many relationships to have gone sour, because they don't treat their relationships as their No.1 priority in their lives. Getting your priorities right is the start of anything and everything happy.
• Keep the flame alight and cherish one another - After a period of time like all things in life, relationships start to wane and fade. It is up to each individual in the relationship to keep the relationship going, it is important for both the partners to keep it alive and to how it was when it all started, a relationship or any relationship needs to be cultivated with care and affection for it to grow. Always remember why you got married for? and keep on making the relationship exciting and always look for memories to make. Do things spontaneously, do things you have not before to make the other person feel precious and valued. Live and love.

Effective Habits to Keep a Marriage alive. PART -II

• Never belittle your spouse - Many a time we never practice the idiom of "Praising people in public and rebuking them in private" in fact our egos are too big most of the time to let us reveal that the bigger person in our relationship is not us, in fact if people look up to the person we are with, we shall share that admiration too, and people look up to us also. It also makes you spouse feel bigger and in turn he or she will look to carry you along where ever they go, since quite simply you make them feel good. Never make or let the other person feel insecure, the problems that arise from insecurity are numerous. Find the courage and creativity to promote and protect your partner's self-esteem, even when you feel compelled to be critical. By using the value of self-esteem, you provide a much more nurturing atmosphere, one your partner will not want to abandon - Dr.Phil.
• Always discuss issues, problems and decisions together - One can never ever say this enough, always discuss issues relating to anything as communication is the essence of any good relationship, you have a problem with your spouse -talk about it, you have a problem at your job - talk about it to your spouse, make them part of your every decision. Face your problems together, relationships are not build on the happy times spent together but build on the tough times you had to wriggle out off together. When you go through lot of troubles together, it only brings you together that much more. When you want to make a decision even if its buying a car which your wife doesn't understand, talk to her and tell her why you have zoomed in on that particular car, make the other person feel valuable, it will be reciprocated.
• Always try on your spouse's shoes - It always looks easier from where you stand to do the things that your spouse does, and to judge by that outer view. Instead try to see the world, try to see the things through your spouse's eyes, try on her/his shoes for a day, and feel what they feel, instantly your view in the subject at hand will change and your appreciation for one will only increase.

Effective Habits to Keep a Marriage alive. PART -I

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Like everything in our lives we take the people who love us the most for granted, for that is how we as humans are wired, likewise in marriage as we grow, we take the closest and the dearest person to us in our lives, our spouse, for granted. I've analysed and studied happy couples from afar and from close and these are some of my effective habits to keep a marriage alive and rocking.

• Respect and love each other unconditionally - Respect in a marriage is very important, remember the time when the two to you were dating, how much you respected the him/her, his/her ideas, his/her goals, respected him/her enough to listen to her/his every thought about everything, it made the other person feel so valued, so important, enough to reciprocate the feeling shown to him/her. That's the kind of respect a marriage needs to thrives on, build on it . Love each other like you did the day you got married, love each other without a condition, love each other with no reservation, for love makes the world go around. When you respect and love each other, it only promotes the others self esteem, thereby creating a secure and love filled home. "Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime, Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other everyday - Nicholas Sparks.
• Value each other's time - Many a time in marriage or in life we take the other people's time for granted, we always put our time, our priorities ahead of the other's, we say we are going to be there at a particular time and then land there late casually under the pretext of some excuse or another.If you value somebody's time you would definitely value them.
• Strive always to make the other person happy - It is easy in our daily routine to easily forget your better half, it is easy for us to look for things that make oneself happy, how many times do we think about making our spouse happy, doing things that would make the other person happy at the cost of our own, cause in the end what goes around comes around and in striving to make the other person happy we would indeed be happy. Lets stop being selfish and give being selfless a try.