Some nasty changes in the world make travel—and even life—less appealing. Some changes in my own body and mind have the same effect. A Bucket List seems increasingly irrelevant in old age, not because I’ve already done everything I imagined desirable at an early age, but because the prospect of doing those things no longer appeals. A Bucket List also suggests an unsavory consumer attitude toward experience: a desperation to “have” certain experiences before one kicks the bucket. But, even memories you can’t take with you.

On the other hand, I do seem to accumulate a backlog of self-dissatisfaction, remorse, nagging doubts, and memories of failures or shortcomings. I feel a mounting anxiety as my personal deadline approaches. Some people are experts at judging themselves harshly, however lax they might be otherwise. While I’ve had a lifetime to accumulate mistakes, I’m running out of time to atone for them. Formerly, if I erred or failed to do my best or what I ought, I could chalk it up to learning. I would simply do better next time. But, as the remainder of life shrinks, so does the possibility of “next time.” How many occasions will there be to do better? I begin to see the appeal of religion and the blanket forgiveness of “sin.” It takes away the burden of guilt—though at the price of believing absurdities. At this late date, I’m not about to add that mistake.

There is something else one can do to ease the burden of guilt and forgive oneself. I call it the F**kit List. Instead of checking off a list of last-ditch efforts to make my life complete, I check off self-reprobation as it comes up and symbolically put it in the trash bucket. “You were too self-centered and insensitive to someone’s needs!” That may be true, and will likely happen again. But too late to whine about it: onto the F**kit List! “You live too much in your head!” (True again, but paradoxically also: “You are too attached to sensual pleasure.”) Onto the F**kit List with both! While merely ceasing to attack oneself for a jumble of imperfections hardly guarantees to improve one’s character, it might improve one’s mood.

Who knows, if my mood improves, I might act like a better person. But, of course, thinking one needs to be better is part of the problem. What then? Should I believe I am already the best possible version of myself? No: I must simply stop judging. But easier said than done, since evaluation is a biological prerequisite for being alive at all, and probably the very basis of consciousness. If I cannot be a good self, perhaps I could give up the idea of being a self at all? If that’s what enlightenment is, it doesn’t come naturally.

No doubt confession serves to ease a contrite heart (a prerequisite for a wrathful God’s forgiveness?) A deeper benefit, perhaps, is that it acknowledges fault. Self-forgiveness is not for the queasy. It requires swallowing pride, which can give you indigestion. Recognizing, admitting, and naming one’s failings brings them painfully to the forefront of consciousness before letting them go. Otherwise, they percolate in the unconscious, creating guilt and anxiety, and also further misbehavior. Guilt is like an insecure child, always trying to get attention.

Even without the external threat of Hell, there remains the threat of self-judgment. I don’t worry about a final Judgment Day at the end of time. But what about a personal reckoning at the end of my time? What about a final rush of regrets and self-doubts on the death bed? Well, F**kit! Let every day be Forgiveness Day!