# Bucket List — Aayush Bharti

> Life goals, travel and personal milestones, ticked off one at a time.

URL: https://aayushbharti.in/bucket-list

10 done, 15 to go.

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## Build (career & content)

- [x] [Get 12,000+ organic LinkedIn followers](https://linkedin.com/in/iaayushbharti) (done Jun 2026): Didn't chase followers. My open-source contributions and this portfolio site did the talking.
- [x] [Get 300+ followers on GitHub](https://github.com/aayushbharti) (done Mar 2026): Open-sourced tools I built for myself. Useful code finds its audience.
- [x] Get a remote job (done Jan 2025): A full-time remote role. Same standards as an office, without the commute.
- [x] First open-source contribution (done Dec 2024): Contributed a feature to a popular open-source library. First PR merged, started driving traffic to my GitHub.
- [x] Remote work with an international client (done Sep 2024): A software engineer in San Francisco found me online and started outsourcing work. That first Wise payment in USD turned into an ongoing collaboration.
- [x] Build my first application (done Sep 2023): A notes app with localStorage. Terrible code, but when it worked without a page reload, something clicked.
- [ ] Write 10 technical deep-dives: Not SEO listicles. Real deep-dives on RSC internals, database indexing, building a bundler from scratch.
- [ ] Hit 1K stars on a GitHub repo: By building something so useful that a thousand strangers vouch for it.
- [ ] Ship a product that earns on its own: A SaaS, a tool, anything. Proof that I can create value independent of my time.

## Grind (health & personal)

- [x] [Create portfolio website](https://aayushbharti.in) (done Aug 2024): This site. Every pixel is intentional, every interaction earned its place. The project that ties everything else together.
- [x] Go pure vegetarian (done 2021): No meat, no eggs. No exceptions, no 'just this once.' Years in and don't miss it.
- [x] Quit sugar, coffee, and packaged foods (done 2019): All at once, no cheat days. The hardest part was the first two weeks.
- [x] 100 pushups in 200 seconds: No breaks, no excuses. Just chest to floor, 100 times, under 3 minutes 20 seconds.
- [ ] Run a 10K under 60 minutes: Currently can't run 3K without wanting to quit. Sub-60 is the goal. Finishing is the real goal.
- [ ] Reach a $1 million corpus: Not about the number. About the freedom it buys — the ability to say no to work that doesn't matter.
- [ ] Read 12 books in a year: Not speed-reading. Actually finishing them. Highlighting, thinking, rereading the good parts.
- [ ] Learn to swim: Grew up without a pool. It's time. Not just floating — actual laps, actual breathing technique.
- [ ] Learn a martial art: Boxing, jiu-jitsu, muay thai — something that teaches discipline through getting hit.
- [ ] Meditate for 30 consecutive days: Longest streak: 11 days. The irony of being too busy to sit still for 10 minutes is not lost on me.

## Wander (travel & adventure)

- [ ] Skydiving: My legs shake on balconies. 13,000 feet of freefall. The fear is the point.
- [ ] Solo travel to another country: No itinerary, no safety net. A place where I don't speak the language. Getting lost on purpose.
- [ ] See Edinburgh: Old Town closes, a castle on the hill, Arthur's Seat at sunrise. A city that looks like it was built for stories.
- [ ] Queenstown, New Zealand: Mountains dropping straight into the lake. Hike by day, stars by night — and maybe a bungee jump to prove a point.
- [ ] Tomorrowland: Boom, Belgium. The main stage at night, a few hundred thousand strangers, and music loud enough to feel in your chest.
- [ ] Scuba diving: Breathing underwater. Seeing a world that's been there the whole time, just below the surface.