In director Rob Reiner's "The Bucket List," Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play men who are shocked to learn that they're dying of cancer. In response, they set off on an odyssey of travel and soul searching in order to check off a list filled with things they want to experience before "kicking the bucket."

While the premise is fine for a movie, we don't think people should be terminally ill before deciding what they want out of life. In fact, there's a good argument that a bucket list can be just as valuable to a 20-year-old college student as an aging retiree.

Just ask Dorothy Dermody, a Reno resident who wrote her bucket list last summer, long before the Nicholson/Freeman movie called attention to the topic.

"It's a good idea," she said. "I don't care how old you are. You should sit down and then just start really thinking about what's important."

Nevertheless, it was a dramatic incident that convinced Dermody to put pen to paper. She was diagnosed with a serious illness and learned that she would undergo surgery last June.

"It's a shame because most people don't do it unless they're faced with, 'How much longer do I really have here?' " she said.

On top of Dermody's list was taking 30 minutes a day to read the Bible, and she said she has been doing that. She also added camping in the middle of the desert to her list.

We also posed the question to some celebrities.

Tony Shalhoub, star of "Monk" told us: "I would really like to go to Lebanon and go the village where my dad was born."

Parminder Nagra, the "ER" star (also known for the movie "Bend It Like Beckham") has one serious thing on her bucket list, "to have children." On the lighter side: "I'd like to go horseback riding in the desert. That would be fun."

Amber Tamblyn, former "Joan of Arcadia" star who is now starring in the CBS movie "The Russell Girl" said she'd put piloting on her list. "To take aviation lessons. I'd really like to learn how to fly a plane."

Similarly, actor Leonard Nimoy — who lives part time at Lake Tahoe — left travel and thrill-seeking off of his bucket list. Instead, he said, his priority these days is "to spend more time watching the lake from our living room. After all, that's my designated job. Somebody has to keep an eye on it."

But is there anything these celebs wouldn't want to do again?

"Go to jail." Freeman told the women on "The View" just before the film came out. He said he went to jail years ago for smart mouthing a cop in California.