The Bucket List

"We live, we die. The wheels of the bus go round and round."
This line was uttered by Jack Nicholson from the new movie "The Bucket List". It caught my attention and got stuck in my mind. If you analyze it, it is more of an existentialist's point of view of life.

But Morgan Freeman's line is even more striking: "Find the joy in your life."

How true can it this be? Many people live for the sake of living, but never really finding joy or their purpose, right?

I had a friend in the person of a 70-year-old man, who died a year ago. More often than not, he would always tell me that he had achieved his purpose in life already. Having retired as a Dean of the top University, raised a family, sent all his 5 kids to school, served the church and took care of his wife of more than 40 years (who eventually went ahead of him because of cancer).He would always tell me that reading the Purpose-Driven Life book has less meaning for him because he has achieved his purpose already.During the last two years of his life, he bought a motorcycle. He rode it everyday and was very happy about the freedom that comes with riding it. That was joy for him.

How many of us can truly say that we have achieved our life's purpose, if not on the way to it?

Maybe we can re-phrase the lines from the movie into: "We live, we die. The wheels of the bus go round and round. But we can always find joy in our life."