Making “Someday” Happen-The Years of Living Dangerously

Somewhere, sometime “someday” slips into our lives. Sometimes “someday” is restless as in, “Someday I would like to travel to all seven continents.” Sometimes “someday” is bold and fearless—“Someday I want to climb mountains.” Sometimes “someday” is intellectual (learn a second language), athletic (windsurf) or it involves new motor skills (play a musical instrument).

“Someday” I will do all the exciting, unusual and venturesome things that have instilled in me awe and a sense of wonder from childhood. Someday I will indulge my wanderlust and travel to exotic faraway places.

For many of us “someday” is elusive. We burn through the years of our lives with relentless toil and work. Our days belong to our families, our patients, our profession, our churches and our communities-they are anything but “our” days. The inexorable passage of our days does not include the proverbial “someday.”

This is the personal epiphany of an obsessive-compulsive, workaholic, personality type-A physician who fortunately “got it” in time and spent ten adrenaline-soaked, memory-producing years making “someday” happen.

My message is perhaps most appropriate for physicians ages 40 to 65. Medical school, internship, residency and the early years of establishing a medical practice are pretty much survival situations. Time and money are precious, obligations to family and practice dear. However, it’s never too early to draft a personal list of unique life experiences to do “someday.” With proper planning even the young physician may be able to cross a few items off their life list.

The ideal time to make “someday” happen is that great ennui-inducing epoch called middle age. Without shaking things up, without indulging whim and passion, the middle third of our lives will morph into “muddle age.” The vagaries of health, our inevitable decrease in stamina, the certainty of death and the uncertainty of lifespan make the deferment of making “someday” happen an injudicious proposition.

The idea of creating a list of extraordinary things to do in your lifetime is not unique and has been written about extensively. Indeed, doing a Google search of “things to do before you die” listed 28,200 hits and various life list iterations up to a thousand items long.

A urologist I know was my inspiration to get my act together. He frequently operated the same day I did at North Kansas City Hospital. We’re roughly the same age. Shortly after we both turned 40, whenever I saw him and inquired what he was up to, the answers were esoterically diverse and uniquely spellbinding: “windsurfing off the north shore of Venezuela;” “climbing mountains in the Americas and Europe;” “backpacking in Patagonia;” “living with a family in Mexico for a month to learn Spanish;” and “photographing exotic wildlife in Africa.” You get the idea.

“And you, John? What have you been up to?

What could I say? The most exciting things I experienced were living vicariously through his travels and adventures.

“Well, I went to the Amish festival in Jamesport and…ah…ummh…the crafts exhibit at Silver Dollar City.”

He was always gracious enough not to say “Far out, John, you’re really living life on the edge.”

Eventually I asked why he was doing all these things.

“We’re getting old; we’re not going to live forever. We’ve got to go for it with both hands and make these things happen. We’ve got the money, we can spare the time without short changing our practices and families. In another 10–15 years we may not be able to physically do a lot of these adventures. Hell, we could even be dead. Just do it!”

Time, money, not living forever, getting old, going for it. I got it! I also would make “someday” happen.

Over the next several weeks I cobbled together an extensive list of things I had longed to do “someday”. (See next page.) My wife and I began to travel. We visited all seven continents. Not ones for constructing itineraries and logistics, we used the services of Abercrombie and Kent (A & K) travel company. Their trips are spectacular. For adventure travel to third world and remote locations we used Mountain Travel Sobek. Memorable days and marvelous months of high adventure followed.

The most exciting day was in Queensland, New Zealand where I parachuted from 9,000 feet, rode a jet boat on the Shotover River and bungee jumped off the Kawarau River Bridge (see right). The most dangerous adventure was mountain climbing. On Mt. Rainer a winter storm created a chill factor of −30 degrees below zero. Fierce winds, up to 90 mph, blew two Japanese climbers into a crevasse. Our climbing party turned back 500 feet below the summit. A year later, I successfully reached the summit of 19, 340 ft. Mt. Kilimanjaro. Two of our climbing party, suffering from high altitude cerebral and pulmonary edema, were rushed to safety down the mountain by native porters.

Tandem skydiving, free fall from 9,000 feet, Queensland, New Zealand.

After the fall, parachute jumping, another “someday” happens.

A leap of faith - bungee jumping off the Kawarau bridge, Queensland, New Zealand.

For ten years I happily and enthusiastically whittled away at my life list and scratched off most. Then the years of living dangerously came to an abrupt halt. My mother’s health failed and I had to manage her affairs and look after her needs. She died last year. A son-in-law was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In the interim I developed a number of moderately severe arthritic and degenerative joint diseases that curtailed my intense aerobic exercise program and the high level of physical fitness that enabled me to complete many of these very strenuous endeavors.

I’m 61 years of age. I do not remember my 347^th patient encounter or the 157,353^rd. I do not remember my 6,782^th cataract surgical procedure. But I do remember the years of living dangerously. I remember in blazing Technicolor and Dolby sound when each “someday” became the here and now.

I hope and believe there are other adventures to come. I still would like to hike the Inca Trail. There are other countries I hope to visit. I still want to fly in the open cockpit of a biplane. Presently I greatly enjoy golfing with my buddies Ken, Carl and Chuck-I have yet to break 90.

I urge you to formulate your own list. Bring change, adventure, mental rigor, physical challenge and calculated risk-taking into your life.

I made “someday” happen. You can also. “Someday” it may be too late.

Carpe diem!

Life List to “Make Happen”.

* = completed ? = not completed

“Someday I would like to...”

• Visit all seven continents*

• Climb the highest mountain on a continent* (Mt. Kilimanjaro) (See below.)

  

• Trek in Nepal, Bhutan and see Mt. Everest*

• Parachute, parasail, paraglide, bungee jump*

• Whitewater raft*

• Fly in a glider* and open cockpit biplane?

• Backpack and live in a tent for a week*

• Canoe the boundary waters of Minnesota*

• Go to NASA’s Adult Space Camp*

• Go to NASA’s Aviation Challenge*

• Fly in a World War II bomber*

• Try rock climbing and rappelling*

• Take a course in combat pistol shooting*

• Learn to fly fish*

• Do a llama hut-to-hut hike on the 10th Mountain Division trail*

• Drive a team of sled dogs and winter backpack*

• Visit most of the islands in the Caribbean in the winter*

• Helicopter through the Islands of Hawaii and on the glaciers of Alaska*

• Run a marathon (6)*, complete half Ironman Triathlon (2)*

• Go to a film festival*

• Complete an Outward Bound experience (2)*

• Scuba dive and snorkel*

• Hike into and out of the Grand Canyon*

• Hike the Alps*

• Fund a Chair in Ophthalmology*

• Ride a bicycle a hundred miles in a day*

• Meditate in the Potala in Lhasa, Tibet*

• Win a travel picture contest* (Kansas City Star)

• Buy a Porsche and go to high performance driving school*

• Achieve marksman expertise with Olympic air rifle*

• Hike the Inca Trail and visit Machu Pecchu?

• Learn to play golf* and break 90*

Make “someday” happen soon!

Biography

John C. Hagan, III, MD, FACS, is a Kansas City ophthalmologist and Missouri Medicine Editor since 2000. He is seen at left working on his Bucket List with his wife Becky, bagging their seventh and last continent-Antarctica.

Contact: jhagan@bizkc.rr.com