Edward Cole and Carter Chambers had just received bad news. Each of them had less than a year to live.

Rather than sit around feeling sorry for themselves, the unlikely duo embarks on an adventure to live out their unfulfilled dreams. And learning something about themselves and life in the process.

That’s the premise behind the 2007 movie, "The Bucket List."

But according to marriage and family therapist Sharon Davern, compiling a "bucket list" is a worthwhile activity for everyone.

"I think any time we have dreams and goals, it’s a good thing," Davern said. "It’s very healthy and stimulating.

Little kids know how to dream and they dream big.

It’s not unusual for a kid to say he or she wants to be an astronaut, a fireman, a policeman and a doctor. At that age, they haven’t learned that anything’s impossible. But during the course of a lifetime, we forget our dreams. That was one of Carter’s problems in the movie. He has spent his life providing for his family and forgot to provide for his own dreams.

The unlikely meeting with the rich, eccentric Cole, helped him remember who he used to be.

Davern said that is a healthy approach to take, even for people who aren’t facing an unexpectedly early death. "We need to say ‘I can do this. I can do that,’" she said. Davern said one of the most memorable quotes she ever heard from Margaret Mead talking about her mother. "One of the best things her mother did, when asked if she could do something, Mead’s mother said, ‘I don’t know. Try it and see what happens.’" Davern said that our entire culture lends itself to saying if you haven’t accomplished this by age 30 or 40, you’re done. Then we hear about someone like Buster Martin of England who ran the London Marathon at age 101. Or the Australian woman who won an international audience by becoming the world’s oldest blogger. She recently passed away at age 108. They remained open to the possibilities. That is a message Davern said everyone needs to embrace.

"I don’t think we need to have a terminal illness to have a bucket list," she said. "We always need to have a bucket list.

While remaining open to the wonders and possibilities in life may not keep you alive, "it does make a difference with quality of life," she said. There are a number of sites on the Internet offering participants the opportunity to create and/or share their bucket lists. Goals range from learning a new sport or returning to a sport after years away, learning a new language, travel, learning a new skill, going off on a daring adventure or engaging in an extreme sport, complete or expand your education.

The list is endless. Are you inspired to make your own bucket list? The Web site "100 Things to do Before You Die" offers a few suggestions:

• Schedule a brainstorming session where you just write down whatever comes into your head.

• Push the limits to what you think is possible and think outside the boundaries of your current life.

• Don’t stop at 100 things. Write down as many as you can. You can sift through them later and narrow the list down.

Davern agrees, adding that a Bucket List should be seen as a work in progress. There will be things on the list that you accomplish and others that are no longer possible.

"You can look back and see that ‘I did all that,’" she said. "It’s good to remind yourself what you’ve done."

She stressed that we all have a choice.

We can chose to find the joy in our life, as Carter counsels Edward Cole in the movie, or "you can sit on your front porch and die," Davern said.