After Her Dad Died, Laura Carney Found His Bucket List. Now, She’s on a Mission to Complete It

“Burn it all down.”

That’s a phrase I keep hearing lately. People’s faith in the world seems to have eroded so much that we’re at a point where we need to destroy it.

But the past five years, for me, have been a balm for the turmoil, as I’ve devoted myself to checking off the bucket list of my late father, who was killed by a distracted driver when he was 54.

I was only 25 years old when my father died. Suddenly, I trusted no one. I managed to find a career in women’s magazines, which had been my dream. But I wasn’t fulfilled. When I walked down the aisle at 38, without my father, I felt terrified about the world I was entering once again. Starting a family felt like I had more at stake now.

It was six months after my wedding—and 13 years after my dad’s death—when my brother discovered our dad’s bucket list. Mick Carney wrote his list of life goals in 1978, when I was a baby, but he’d never told us about it. As soon as my brother showed us the list, I knew I needed to finish it.

I couldn’t know when I set out to check off all 54 items—one for each year he lived—that I’d be checking off unconscious wishes of my own. Finishing the list of a dead man has ironically taught me a lot about how to be alive. Here are six lessons my late father’s bucket list has given me:

Lesson 1: Treat everyone like they’re an expert.

Before I started the list, I thought I was curious, but I’ve come to realize I never asked the right questions. Every person has something to teach you. You have to treat people with the respect their knowledge deserves. This is just one of the ways many of us miss out in life, because we want things to be predictable and comfortable and want to respect people’s privacy. Trust me: People love teaching you things. In fact, I can’t think of anything they love more.

Lesson 2: Don’t compromise yourself.

A couple years ago, I met a woman who wanted me to edit her memoir and told me in our phone conversation that she was a psychic. (I’d thought she was just a life coach!) Then she told me that my dad’s spirit was around me and had a message for me. She asked if she had my permission to share it, then whispered the Lord’s Prayer. “OK,” she said. “The message is ‘Don’t compromise yourself.’”

I had no idea what she and he were talking about.

But I’ve thought about this often the past few years, particularly as I’ve worked on this project, a mission that has expanded my concept of who I am and what I can do.

I was a people-pleaser before setting out to finish my dad’s bucket list. Despite having the same ambitious spark, much of my life revolved around checking with others to be sure that spark was allowed. I was always tamping myself down, without realizing it. I was always living by the rules of somebody else.

The problem with living by someone else’s rules is that they can change them whenever they want to. Nobody can tell you who or what you are. That’s God’s job.

Don’t compromise yourself. When you place yourself in a box, you make it impossible to see what’s outside of it.

Lesson 3: Be flexible.

While there are certain areas where you must never flex—if you want to build something, you need a solid foundation—you can accept that you are co-building with forces greater than you are, who know more than you do and who always have your best interest at heart.

That might be hard to swallow now, when half the country faces the repercussions of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, when we can’t attend a Fourth of July parade without fearing being shot (or send our kids to school), when other rights we hold dear are at risk of being overturned, when every day seems a step closer to the world melting down. When a pandemic that’s lasted two years seems no closer to ending—and same goes for the war in Ukraine, inflation, and the mental health epidemic.

Yet there’s a difference between what you think is best for you and what actually is best for you, for the kind of person you’re meant to be. If you have faith, be prepared for some surprises.

The unknown is the best part of life.

Lesson 4: The universe is always speaking to you—learn its code.

Even before I set out on this project, the universe was planting seeds. “Surf in the Pacific Ocean” was one of the hardest list items, so I naturally watched “Point Break,” the 1980s surfing movie with Keanu Reeves, for encouragement. The day I finally stood on a board, my husband and I celebrated in a vegan restaurant in L.A., and who do you think walked in? Keanu Reeves.

When I checked off “own a black tux,” I scrolled my phone for weeks, looking for a women’s tuxedo. Everything I found looked like a costume. Then one day I stepped outside and turned to look at the boutique below my apartment, and there it was, standing in the window: a women’s tux. The only one left was exactly my size.

Events like these have destroyed my belief in coincidence. When amazing things happen, I can retrace the steps. When crappy things happen, I think “plot twist!” and look for what this challenge can teach me.

If you are wondering what to do next in your life, start viewing it like a writer would. You might find the map was there all along.

Lesson 5: Create your own reality.

I’ve been told a few times while trying to check off every item on my dad’s bucket list that I’m “not living in reality.” It’s usually said after I’ve said something about how I planned to check something off, probably something that seemed impossible.

I never understood until I set out to do this how subjective reality truly is. I used to believe there was one set Reality, with a capital R, that everyone was living—that only the crazy people weren’t in tune with it.

Now I know different. Everyone is always living in their own perception of reality at all times. You could ask seven different people who witnessed an event what happened, and you’d get seven somewhat different answers.

What’s more, our perspectives are almost always creating our reality. The stuff you’re living through right now is largely a result of choices you made months ago, years ago, even choices your parents made that are now affecting what you choose to do. And how you choose to react to the results of those choices? That too is on you. You can say, poor me, the world is against me. Or, you can say, OK, I can turn this around. You can view an obstacle as a stumbling block or as a hurdle you get to jump.

How you view your own reality is the only true power you have. If the choice is yours, why not make it a good one?

Just like the creative energy that brought us to life, we too can create things. That power is always in us. Your life is yours. Make it what you want. And don’t listen when someone says you aren’t living in reality. You probably just aren’t living in theirs.

Lesson 6: Trust yourself.

When I was growing up, I often found my father unreliable—not in an emotional sense, but in how mysterious his life seemed. Though he asked me all the time to call him if I needed anything (my parents divorced when I was 6 years old), I resisted. I did this because I feared he could not provide it.

I didn’t realize until I leaned into his list that I’d internalized the same fear about me: That I must not ask myself for anything, because I might not be able to provide it. I also didn’t realize that when a person can’t trust themselves—can’t trust their own word, can’t believe they can take care of themselves, can’t stay true to their own moral code—they have a hell of a time trusting others.

I’ve now written three lists of my own: a values list, a list of life goals, and my own bucket list. My values list is everything I care about in life. I rewrite it every three years. It was harder to write the second two lists—when you put your dreams on paper, it feels like you’re promising something.

But when you prove to yourself that you can trust yourself, the world gets easier. Because you know that no matter what happens, you’ll find a way through. When you keep your commitments to you, when you believe in a mission even when no one else does, when you are willing to stand alone—you suddenly find yourself surrounded by like-minded people.

I’ve been amazed by how many wonderful friends now fill my world, people whose cups I’ve filled at times and who now replenish mine. When you are merciful to yourself, you are more merciful to others. And they are more merciful to you.

And that’s what makes the world go round. Not justice. Mercy.

Trust yourself, and you can trust the world again. When you let people help you find your footing, you will find solid ground.

Laura Carney is a writer and magazine copy editor in New York. She's been published by the Washington Post, the Associated Press, The Hill, Runner's World, Good Housekeeping, The Fix, Upworthy, and other places, and her book My Father’s List: How Living My Dad’s Dreams Set Me Free is being published by Post Hill Press in May 2023. She’s @myfatherslist on Instagram and Twitter, and her websites are myfatherslist.com and bylauracarney.com. She is represented by Davey Literary and Media.