Are your ducks in a row?

I am a list person.  Those who know me will know that if you want to know what I am up to, look for my lists!  Grocery lists, to do lists, client lists, long term project lists, house projects and even, sometimes, indulgently, wish lists.  I cannot sleep at night until at least a few things have been crossed off of my lists!  Admittedly, I will even write things on my list that I have already done, just so I can cross them off!  (I mastered that technique when my girls were little and it was impossibly hard to complete anything on my list...so at the end of the day I would write things like, "be flexible", "survive the crazy day with sick kids"...check, check!)  I love a nice dark, definitive line through the things that I've accomplished, or a healthy check sign! 

Sometimes, though, I stare at my lists, in a bit of dismay, and think...is this my life?!  Has my life become defined by these lists?  And if I am the author of these lists, why don't the "big" things make it to my lists?  And, what ARE the "big" things?  (Did I mention that I was a Philosophy major!)

The adage "get your ducks in a row" suggests that we have to get all the little things in our life straightened out before we move forward (some suggest the saying refers to bowling pins, others say it references momma ducks getting their babies together...but the meaning is the same).  Thus my lists, my ducks, are itemized neatly, and reworked when they get too messy on the page, and someday, when my ducks are in a row, I'll be able to tackle the big things?!  Right?

What ARE the big things again? 

...I am probably going to have to make a list....