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If you had 37 days left to live, what would you do? We’re often posed that question: in a new popular book “Life is a Verb” (http://bbandbohmy.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-37-days-and-life-is-verb.html) by the wonderful “37 Days” blogger Patti Digh (http://www.pattidigh.com/), in personal growth workshops, in the movies, even in party icebreakers. The list always seems to resemble Tim McGraw’s (http://www.starpulse.com/Music/McGraw,_Tim/) hit country song “Live Like You Were Dying:”( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSGLZd9Vg4)

I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I spent 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu

I met a 75 year old man last week as he was about to jump off the top off Mt. Prevost (http://www.britishcolumbia.com/recreation/?id=24) strapped to a hangglider (and its slightly nervous owner). He was doing his Bucket List (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-to-create-and-manage-your-%E2%80%9Cbucket-list%E2%80%9D-before-you-kick.html), having just come from a zip line at Whistler Mountain (http://www.alluradirect.com/whistler-ziplining.cfm), scaling some famous peak in Peru, and other such outrageous tasks. While I admire his pluck, I wonder about his choice of chickens.

I watched The Bucket List (http://www.moviejohn.com/2008/01/bucket-list.html) movie and was equally concerned with the pecking order of the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freedman characters. Instead of driving racecars, chasing buffalo, strolling around the Taj Mahal (http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cummingandgoing/world_2006-07/1175989680/tpod.html) and trying to kiss the most beautiful girl in the world, couldn’t they have been doing something worthwhile, giving back? A philanthropy bucket list – before I die, I will serve soup to the homeless, cure cancer and build a smaller energy-efficient house. Now that would be a great movie that no-one would watch.

We must be deeper than this. We must find more meaning to life than riding a bull. In a world filled with richness, with need, with a deep desire for more connection and meaning, why does the typical bucket list seem to be all about extreme sports and hedonism?

Yes I’d enjoy walking the West Coast Trail and the Great Wall, but I’m not going to die unsatisfied if those never happen. But I will die unhappy if I feel a lack of integrity, a lack of meaningful connection to those I love and the world I inhabit.

So my bucket list – my things that are most important – are all about family, community, deeper understanding. And of course if they’re important enough to do before I die, they should be important enough to take the front row right now, today and every day. I recently published an article about the changes my family has made (http://carrieanddanielle.com/it-can-be-this-good-four-steps-to-living-your-dream/) to live more in line with these core values, so all I’ll add here is that life keeps getting richer – my bucket overfloweth.

To be fair to Tim and Jack, their creative works end in a similar fashion. Tim McGraw’s song goes on to say: and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying. I was finally the husband most of the time I wasn’t, and I became a friend a friend would like to have…

And Jack Nicholson’s character brought tears to my eyes when he made amends with his daughter, kissed his granddaughter on the head, then brought out the rumpled list and put a checkmark beside “kiss the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Maybe my wife’s right that I’m just taking the question too seriously – it’s OK to want a bit of adventure and travel and unadulterated enjoyment. And movies and country music and bucket list blogs (http://bucketlistblog.com/) do get the underlying message of infusing deeper meaning into our everyday lives. So I’ll just let myself appreciate both the fun and the beauty of the movie I planned to hate, and leave you with its opening lines:

It’s difficult to understand the sum of a person’s life

Some people will tell you it’s measured by the ones left behind

Some believe it can be measured in faith

Some say by love

Other folk say life has no meaning at all

Me, I believe that you measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.

And you, what’s in the shallow and deep ends of your bucket?