15 Things – 5 More Reasons Why

Posted on | September 3, 2009 | No Comments

In my continuing quest to ensure that I complete my “15 Before 30″ list on time, I decided to write out my reasons for including each task on the list. I had previously explained tasks 1-5 and have now moved on to tasks 6-10.

Tasks 6-10

6. Go to India.
7. Completed.
8. Become fluent in French.
9. Go to Vegas and gamble for real.
10. Learn to snowboard.

I love to travel and visit new places, so I could have theoretically put any location or destination on my list. But task 6, India, holds a special sway over me. My sister-in-law is Indian and for a long time, she and my brother have been saying, “We’ve got to get you to India.” Well, great! When do we leave? (My brother, mind you, has been at least 4 times). But besides exploring the country with insider guides, I’ve wanted to visit ever since I took a World Religions course in college. Much like Israel can claim to be the home of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, India plays host to a number of Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism. There’s an ancientness to India that pervades the country and seeps into you. There’s so much to see and learn and appreciate there, so much unknown that I want to know.

I know you’ll probably think I’m cheating here, but since I completed task 7 already, I’m not going to discuss the reasoning behind it. Suffice it to say, I think it’s best if I leave it completed and not rehash the details.

Task 8 stems from my belief that we all should, as citizens of a global world, make an attempt to speak more than one language. Americans are somewhat arrogant in their assumption that someone will speak English anywhere they go in the world. And while it’s certainly true that a great many people learn English because it is so pervasive, it seems so presumptuous to expect others to accommodate your language preferences if you’re in their country. I started French classes in high school and continued through college. I managed to develop a fairly good grasp of the language, though I fared better at reading French than I did at speaking and listening. But in the years after college, I never had any cause to use my language skills and I began to lose them. I want to rebuild those skills and gain fluency. And while Spanish would probably be more useful in the United States, I fell in love with French years ago and it remains near and dear to my heart.

Ah, Vegas (task 9). Sin and vice and electric lights. There’s nothing quite like Las Vegas and I’m a firm believer in seeing it once in a lifetime, much the same as you would visit the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty. I’m not a gambler. If anything, I’m a hoarder. I prefer to hold tightly to what little money I do have. But Vegas is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and the whole purpose of my list was to embark upon once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Task 10 was born from my desire to try new things. I suppose I could have put any number of things on the list that I hadn’t done before, but the idea of snowboarding got stuck in my head awhile back, so on the list it went. Snowboarders, like surfers, have a certain stereotype associated with them, one that I do not fit at all. In fact, I’m about as far as you can get from a stereotypical snowboarder. And that’s exactly the point. I like to surprise people, to do the unexpected. I don’t want to be boring or complacent. I want to push myself beyond my comfort zone and mess with assumptions. Plus, I learned to ski years ago, so I’m already familiar with winter sports.

Don’t disappear yet! I’ll be back in the near future with the rationale behind the final 5 tasks on my list.

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