Highlights of Summer 2011 One Day to Live Project

This past February I wrote a story about the website, Wishes4life that serves as a platform to express wishes and realize dreams. As part of their site launch, they ran a contest for a video entitled, "One Day to Live," in which they gave away an iPad2 to the winning video which was a poignant wish made on behalf of the contestant's unnamed loved one who truly did have a short time to live.

The good news is that due to that contest's great success, there is now another contest underway. It was launched on the first day of summer. The entries submitted so far have been impressive, with a particularly strong set of entries from among the younger visitors to the site. Perhaps this is because the younger folks are more comfortable with the tools required to produce a home video, or maybe it's because they are more in touch with the process of making wishes. As you go through the videos on the site, what becomes apparent is the number of times the word, "awesome" shows up in the various entries. Just kidding. Really, though, there is some great stuff up there that is definitely worth checking out.

Images, words, and sometimes music

Images, words, and sometimes music, combine to tell some very powerful stories in just a minute or two. As before, there is a nice variety of submissions. On the lighthearted side there is a clever spoof on the whole idea of making wishes, featuring a genie and a magical mask. "Dude, check out this cool mask I found up in the attic."

Another, by a young couple, is romantically sweet, where they each wish for each other to have a child, he, that she would have his child, and she, that he gets to be a father if either of them had one day left to live.

A young man with chronic pancreatitis, a painful condition with no existing cure, expresses his wish is for a cure, not for himself, since the wish is being made on his last day on earth, but for others, because, "I don't want any child to go through the pain that I've gone through for the last nine years."

A young girl's final wish would be to end to drunk driving, "it kills so many innocent people, it has to stop."

Nature

Another young girl's wish would be "for all people to realize how incredible nature is, and do their part to sustain its beauty", and to "keep Nature Alive"

Make Time To Remember

One video is a deep reflection on the things that matter. Opening with a theme of awakening, it begins, "Most of us don't hear it. Most of it don't want to hear it." What is it? Time. "Time is what makes life precious, so precious that we have to make time to remember

Love

See herself through my eyes

Last gift to give

Short drama with original story and music touches on how fragile, yet enduring life is and that it should be seen as a celebration to be exchanged, not thrown away. Last Gift to Give

A better place to live

The imagery, words and music form a bridge, which takes me to a different culture on the other side of the world. India--mysterious, inviting, sad and joyful--all at the same time. A Better Place to Live

Accomplishment, the greatest feeling

A 14-year old young man, does some soul searching in his video, looking for a wish for someone on their last day on earth. After rejecting some more superficial ideas, like getting to drive their dream car or live in their dream house for a day, he chooses instead "that they understood that they did everything they could," because, "the feeling of accomplishment, is the greatest feeling in the world."

I hope that you will take a few minutes to check this site out. Perhaps you'll be inspired to enter a video of your own, share with others or perhaps just be inspired. Onedaytolive 

• HuffingtonPost - W4L: A Time and a Place to Reflect
• Letting Go? Huh? What? 
• Catch The Trade Winds
• Distraction Free Zone
• Vote for the next question or post your question 
• What's on your bucket list