When you get news that changes everything, the impulse is to freeze. Catherine and I received two diagnosis at nearly the same time: I needed a heart-valve replacement, and she had early-onset Alzheimer’s. We were both in our fifties. We could have let fear take over. Instead, we asked ourselves a harder question: what do we want our remaining years to look like?
That question led us to sell our home, leave our jobs, and spend eight years traveling the world together, running marathons and half-marathons across continents. It transformed how we understood bucket list ideas and, more importantly, what it means to create meaning in life when time feels uncertain.
What Does Creating Meaning Really Mean?
Creating meaning in life isn’t about checking off exotic destinations or collecting accomplishments. It’s about deciding what matters to you right now and building your days around that decision. For us, it was movement, adventure, and togetherness. For someone else, it might be deepening family bonds, creating art, volunteering, or simply being present in small moments.
When Catherine was diagnosed, we knew the disease would eventually take things from her. We couldn’t control that progression. But we could control how we spent our time together. We chose action over passivity. We chose to live while we could, fully and without apology.
That shift in perspective changed everything. Instead of waiting for the right moment or the right circumstances, we created them.
Living Life to the Fullest Looks Different for Everyone
You don’t need a terminal diagnosis to feel the pressure to live life to the fullest. Our culture constantly tells us we should be doing more, seeing more, experiencing more. But living fully isn’t about quantity. It’s about quality and intention.
For us, living life to the fullest meant:
- Running marathons on all seven continents, including Antarctica
- Experiencing Madagascar’s unique landscape and wildlife
- Crossing into Bhutan and walking the Great Wall of China
- Waking up in a different country, with only what fit in our suitcases
- Holding hands crossing every finish line, no matter how hard the race
- Adapting our adventures as Catherine’s abilities changed
But we also learned that living fully sometimes meant stopping. It meant slowing down. It meant recognizing when a half-marathon in the Australian Outback, run mere weeks after breaking her ankle, was enough. The measure wasn’t the distance or the time. It was the fact that we showed up together.
What living life to the fullest looks like for you depends entirely on your values and your season. A parent with young children might find it in creating rituals and traditions at home. Someone dealing with chronic illness might find it in small daily victories. A retiree might find it in travel, or in mentoring, or in finally starting that project they’ve always wanted to tackle.
The key is asking yourself: if time were more limited, what would actually matter to me?
How to Find Meaning When Everything Is Changing
Finding meaning becomes most urgent when life feels unstable. That’s when bucket list ideas often emerge, but they’re only useful if they connect to something deeper.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What brings me genuine joy, not just Instagram-worthy moments?
- Who do I want more time with, and what do I want to do together?
- What part of my identity or values do I want to express before it’s too late?
- What would I regret not doing or saying?
- How can I create small versions of meaning today, not just someday?
Then, commit to something concrete. For us, it wasn’t enough to want adventure. We booked flights. We registered for races. We created accountability. That commitment turned abstract dreams into actual experiences.
As Catherine’s Alzheimer’s progressed, our expression of meaning had to shift. The ambitious international races gave way to local runs and slow walks. But the core remained: we were still doing this together. We were still creating moments that mattered.
That’s an important truth. Creating meaning isn’t static. It evolves as you evolve. The meaning-making that sustains you at forty might look different at sixty or seventy. Flexibility matters as much as commitment.
The Role of Shared Purpose in Difficult Times
One of the most powerful discoveries during our journey was how shared purpose can sustain you through hardship. We weren’t running marathons just to check them off. We were running them together, which made each finish line a shared victory.
If you’re facing uncertainty or loss, consider whether there’s someone you want to face it with. Consider what you could do together that would make the hard parts feel less isolating. That might be travel, but it might also be cooking, gardening, creating art, or simply sitting together while listening to music.
Shared purpose gives you something beyond yourself to focus on. When despair creeps in, as it inevitably does, you have an anchor. You have a reason to show up.
Starting Small: Meaningful Bucket List Ideas for Now
You don’t need to overhaul your life to create meaning, though we did. You can start small.
Consider bucket list ideas that fit your current reality:
- If you love learning: take a class in something you’ve always wondered about, audit lectures, start a reading list with someone you care about
- If you love nature: plan regular hikes or walks in places you’ve never explored, volunteer for conservation work, start a garden
- If you love connection: schedule regular meals with people who matter, host gatherings, write letters to people you appreciate
- If you love creativity: commit to one creative project, take lessons, collaborate with someone
- If you love movement: sign up for a race, start a fitness journey, take up a new sport
- If you love your community: volunteer, mentor, teach, support a cause you believe in
The specifics matter less than the consistency and intention. Meaningful living doesn’t require perfection or grand gestures. It requires showing up regularly for what matters.
Your Meaning Doesn’t Have to Match Anyone Else’s
When we decided to become nomads and run marathons across the world, plenty of people thought we were reckless or running away. Maybe we were doing both. But the point is, we stopped waiting for permission or approval. We decided what mattered to us, and we did it.
Your meaning-making might look completely different from ours, and that’s exactly right. You get to define what living life to the fullest means in your own context, with your own constraints, values, and dreams.
The only real failure is waiting until it’s too late to start.
If you’re thinking about what creates meaning in your life, or if you’re facing your own version of life-changing news, you’re already asking the right questions. Start there. Start small. But start now. Because the time you have right now is the only time you’re guaranteed.
Want to dive deeper into how we created meaning and adventure across eight years of nomadic life? Running With Cat’s memoirs tell the full story of our journey, including the setbacks, adaptations, and small victories that kept us moving forward.