The Reverse Bucket List: Cross Out What You Don't Actually Want

I keep a bucket list. You probably do too. But here’s what I learned from Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor and happiness researcher: the most powerful thing you can do with a bucket list isn’t to achieve the items on it. It’s to cross them out by writing them on a reverse bucket list. The reverse bucket list isn’t about lowering standards or settling. It’s about raising standards—but for what counts as worthy of your precious, finite attention and desire.

• The Satisfaction Formula
• The Reverse Bucket List Method
  • How it works
  • Why this is hard
• My Reverse Bucket List Exercise
  • What I crossed out
  • What stayed
  • The dragon’s protest
• Intention Without Attachment
  • The neurophysiology of ghostly goals
  • Practicing detachment
• When to Review Your Reverse Bucket List
• The Paradox of Wanting Less

The Satisfaction Formula

Satisfaction = Haves ÷ Wants

You get two choices: increase the numerator (haves), or decrease the denominator (wants)

Most of us spend our lives working on the numerator. We chase promotions, possessions, achievements, experiences. And sure, having more does increase satisfaction—for a while.

But it’s like running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up. The hedonic adaptation kicks in. Yesterday’s achievement becomes today’s baseline. The new normal.

The denominator is where the real power is. Want less, and your satisfaction increases immediately—and permanently.

The Reverse Bucket List Method

Here’s Brooks’ counterintuitive approach:

How it works

1. Write down the most ridiculous things you want
   • Don’t censor yourself
   • Include the impressive, the aspirational, the Instagram-worthy
   • The things you tell people at dinner parties
   • The goals that sound good but feel hollow
2. Deliberately cross them out
   • Not because you achieved them
   • Because you’re choosing not to want them anymore
   • Because they’re somebody else’s dream, not yours
   • Because they’re feeding ego, not meaning
3. Make the ghostly goals conscious
   • These desires haunt you from the subconscious
   • They create background anxiety and inadequacy
   • Bringing them into awareness lets you examine them rationally
   • The prefrontal cortex can override the emotional drive
4. Practice detachment
   • Review the list periodically
   • Ask: “Am I still practicing the detachment I committed to?”
   • Notice when crossed-out desires try to creep back
   • Recommit to wanting less

The dragon’s protest

Dragon: You’re just rationalizing your failures. “I didn’t achieve it, so I’ll pretend I didn’t want it.”

Igor: Maybe. Or maybe I’m finally admitting what I actually want instead of what I think I should want.

Dragon: What if you’re wrong? What if you cross out the wrong things?

Igor: Then I’ll add them back. This isn’t permanent ink. But right now, carrying around desires that aren’t mine is exhausting.

My Reverse Bucket List

What I crossed out

• Juggle Fire: Did that, it was great, but now it’s time to switch to LEDs.
• Become a manager of managers: You ever hear of the “Peter Principle”? You’ll be promoted to your level of incompetence. Yeah, I try to avoid that. But I do love my job, and wrote a bunch about it
• Have a big house: I like my small house. When I moved in, I said I want to die in this house, but hopefully not soon. Maybe that was a mistake, but one I’m going to live with.
• Learn Rust: Honestly, I don’t need to learn a system programming language, and I certainly don’t need to do one in the world of large language models.

What was never on my list, but is common for others

• Run a marathon: (This was never on my list, but common for many). I like running 4 miles. Beyond that is just a lot of time.
• Sports car: I just don’t like to go fast. But I do love my Tesla
• Travel: Just never excited me. There is so much when you look deeper instead of going farther

What stayed

Take a gap year with my family - This one passed every test. It aligns with my actual values (presence, adventure, family, experiencing life while I still can).

Maintain strength to play with grandkids on the floor - Physical, meaningful, time-sensitive. Stays.

Run around Green Lake with my kids - Oddly I stopped running a few years back, time to get that back now that they do.

Dance with my daughter at her wedding - Not about the wedding. About being healthy and present for her milestones. Stays.

Have real conversations with old friends before it’s too late - Relational, urgent, actually matters to me. Stays.

Intention Without Attachment

This is the key: Brooks isn’t saying to eliminate all desires. He’s teaching “intention without attachment.”

You can still have goals. You can still work toward things. But you’re not owned by them.

The bucket list items that stayed? I’m working on them, but I’m not attached to achieving them in a specific way or timeline. I’m not measuring my worth by checking them off.

The items I crossed out? I’m actively practicing not wanting them. When I notice myself slipping into old patterns (“Maybe I should train for that marathon…”), I revisit my reverse bucket list and remember why I crossed it out.

The neurophysiology of ghostly goals

Here’s what’s wild: these desires live in the emotional and subconscious parts of your brain. They drive behavior without your conscious awareness. You feel vaguely inadequate, vaguely anxious, vaguely behind—but you can’t quite articulate why.

Writing them down and crossing them out moves them to your prefrontal cortex, where you can rationally evaluate them. “Do I actually want this? Or did I absorb this desire from culture, comparison, or childhood?”

Once you see them clearly, they lose their power.

Practicing detachment

This is ongoing work, not a one-time exercise. Brooks recommends making this a regular practice. Here’s when I find it most useful:

When I’m feeling inadequate for no clear reason - Usually means some ghostly goal is haunting me. Time to make it conscious and cross it out.

When I’m comparing myself to others - Someone else’s achievement triggers my envy? Either it’s something I actually want (and should pursue with intention) or it’s ego (and should be crossed out).

When I’m making a major life decision - Is this choice driven by a desire that actually matters to me? Or am I chasing something I don’t even want?

Quarterly reviews - Along with my bucket list review. What’s still serving me? What needs to be crossed out? I ask myself:

• Which crossed-out desires am I still secretly harboring?
• What new desires need to be crossed out?
• Am I practicing detachment, or am I just pretending?

After achieving something - Did it satisfy me? If not, why was it on the list in the first place? Cross out similar items.

The Paradox of Wanting Less

Here’s what I didn’t expect: crossing things out didn’t make me less ambitious. It made me more focused.

When you stop diffusing your energy across dozens of semi-wants, you can put full intention into the few things that actually matter.

The reverse bucket list isn’t about lowering standards or settling. It’s about raising standards—but for what counts as worthy of your precious, finite attention and desire.

The ultimate bucket list is your eulogy. How do you want to be remembered?

Most of what’s on your bucket list won’t be mentioned at your funeral. The marathon, the sports car, the seven continents—nobody will care.

What they’ll remember:

• Were you present?
• Did you love well?
• Were you brave when it mattered?
• Did you show up?

Cross out everything else.

Because you never know when it’s over.