One Day On Earth: 11/11/11

Mark your cal­en­dars for Nov. 11, 2011 — 11.11.11. Some­thing amaz­ing is going to hap­pen on that day, and you can be a part of it.

Imag­ine you could get a glimpse of human­ity, every­where on the planet, all at the same time. Imag­ine you could look across the land­scape of the globe and see a lit­tle chunk of life going on in every coun­try, all on a sin­gle day. Imag­ine that you could know the story of the world, as it is, right now.

That’s what a group of cre­ative film­mak­ers, stu­dents and inspired cit­i­zens set out to do last Octo­ber. Their vision was to doc­u­ment the human story, with all of its diver­sity and drama, on a sin­gle day. They chose Oct. 10, 2010 (10/10/10). The group, One Day On Earth, has cre­ated a DVD from that ini­tial project, now avail­able online.

What’s Com­ing Next

You can become part of their next One Day On Earth pro­duc­tion, to be filmed this year on 11/11/11. On the site and you’ll find an archive of footage from the var­i­ous coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing and a map of the globe show­ing who’s represented.

Here’s a brief but com­pelling trailer of last year’s pro­duc­tion. Check this out and catch a glimpse of this amaz­ing world we share with almost 7 bil­lion other human beings:

There is so much more going on here on planet Earth in the way of good news, but we never hear about it. It’s easy to lose sight of the mag­ni­tude of good­ness in this jour­ney we share when the media focus is almost exclu­sively on bad news.

It’s easy to lose faith in our­selves and in mankind as a whole, when most of what we hear about is war, death, destruc­tion and loss. And heaven knows there’s plenty of bad news to go around. We’re mar­i­nated in it on a daily basis. And to make mat­ters worse, the news we mostly hear is not only not good, it doesn’t sound like it’s about to get bet­ter any time soon.

I’m curi­ous as any­one about what’s going on in the world. But despite what the folks over at Fox News claim, media cov­er­age is any­thing but “fair and bal­anced.” The main­stream media’s bias toward cov­er­ing sto­ries of con­flict, or focus­ing on the ide­o­log­i­cal strug­gle within a larger story, makes it dif­fi­cult to find news that uplifts and inspires. “Good news is bor­ing and doesn’t pho­to­graph well”, says Andrew R. Cline, Ph.D., fas­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of jour­nal­ism at Mis­souri State University.

Yes, we are awash in bad news. And because of this it’s chal­leng­ing to keep a pos­i­tive per­spec­tive. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sug­gest­ing we bury our heads in the sand and pre­tend the world’s injus­tices aren’t happening.

But the real­ity is, bad news is not all there is. There is more going on right in front of us than meets the eye, and because good news isn’t con­sid­ered sexy or news­wor­thy, it doesn’t get much cov­er­age and there­fore flies under the radar, and we never hear about most of it.

We need to become adept in sleuthing out the good that is hap­pen­ing amidst all the bad. It’s there, but we need to have the eyes and the ears for it. Hav­ing one’s anten­nae tuned to the “Good News Chan­nel” helps one become aware of projects like One Day on Earth. Just view­ing the movie trailer is enough to restore one’s faith in the good­ness of mankind.

Your Own One Day on Earth Project

Put your­self in the shoes of a par­tic­i­pant in this project. You really could be, you know. Imag­ine that you were film­ing a seg­ment of your life, your world, unfold­ing on a sin­gle day: 11/11/11. If you could show the world who you are and how your life occurs on any given day, what would we see?

Would we see some­one slog­ging through their day, count­ing the hours until it’s over? Would we see some­one who’s bored, resigned, cyn­i­cal or angry? Would we see a human being who wakes up and who’s first con­scious thought is gratitude?

How you show up every day is entirely within your con­trol. No mat­ter what’s going on “out there,” each of us has the power to shape our own real­ity through the choices we make every day, the thoughts we think and the sto­ries we tell our­selves about what’s going on.

What would the world be like if each per­son absolutely knew they were an essen­tial part of this team called “human being,” and that their par­tic­i­pa­tion was instru­men­tal to the out­come of the game called life? What if every­one saw clearly how the way they show up has an impact on every­one and every­thing around them? What if we knew with­out ques­tion that every­thing depends on every­thing else? Wouldn’t that be good news?

Every­thing Depends Upon Everything

One day I was dri­ving across the Bay Bridge on my way into San Fran­cisco, a trip I make at least once or twice a week. On this par­tic­u­lar day, while trav­el­ing across the mid-section of the bridge con­tain­ing a huge “S”-shaped curve, I became aware of the “dance” of traf­fic and how it was all per­fectly chore­o­graphed to ensure every­one slowed down in uni­son and made it safely around the curve and across the bridge.

I became aware of the dri­ver in each car, even though I couldn’t see them all, as a mem­ber of this lit­tle “team” of dri­ver and cars, col­lab­o­rat­ing cre­atively on this stretch of road. And then I imag­ined each dri­ver mov­ing on to his/her des­ti­na­tion, still being cog­nizant of the “dance,” still inter­act­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with every­one they met.

What would be pos­si­ble if human­ity behaved as if its very exis­tence depended upon col­lab­o­ra­tion? I believe that it does. Even though we don’t appear to have got­ten this mes­sage, and even though we appear to be much more about com­pe­ti­tion, win­ning and los­ing, there is another way for us to go. This is good news!

We are never going to solve the prob­lems mankind faces unless we get that we’re all in this together. If the qual­ity of the air we breathe and the water we drink becomes unfit for human con­sump­tion, every­one loses. It won’t mat­ter how much money one has if the planet can no longer sus­tain human life. There won’t be any winners.

Add Good News to Your Daily Diet

Endeav­ors like the One Day On Earth project are so impor­tant because they demon­strate what’s pos­si­ble. And if you’re inter­ested in learn­ing about more good news, I rec­om­mend the site Dai­ly­Good. There, you’ll find a mul­ti­tude of sto­ries to uplift, inspire and restore your faith in mankind. This is my “go to” source for good news on a reg­u­lar basis. And right now, who couldn’t use a daily dose of goodness?

What does it do for you to know there are peo­ple all over the planet prepar­ing for this One Day On Earth — 11/11/11, a day of “cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion”? Are you inspired? I am! It doesn’t get any bet­ter for me than know­ing that on this day, there will be a col­lec­tive inten­tion to col­lab­o­rate toward the con­scious­ness of unity. That’s the whole ball­game as far as I’m con­cerned. And this is very good news!

What could be pos­si­ble if we started putting together a few of these days back to back? A day where the whole world is peace­ful. A week of kind­ness. A month of com­pas­sion. A year of joy. Can you imag­ine? That’s what John Lennon invited us to do more than 30 years ago. That dream lives on.

Where will you be on 11/11/11? Even though, at the time of this writ­ing, this event takes place moe than a month from now, plan now to be part of this col­lec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion. Don’t be sur­prised if you see some peo­ple with video cam­eras film­ing life as it occurs and if that footage includes you. Or, why not be the one hold­ing the cam­era? Everyone’s con­tri­bu­tion counts, includ­ing yours. And that is very, very, very good news!

Got any good news to share? Pile it on! What’s going on in your world, the shar­ing of which can uplift and inspire oth­ers? Come on. Dig a lit­tle deeper. It’s all there. We’re listening.

You can become part of their next One Day On Earth pro­duc­tion, to be filmed this year on 11/11/11, either by mak­ing a dona­tion to help cover pro­duc­tion costs and/or vol­un­teer to con­tribute footage of your own videos taken on 11/11/11.

Tagged as: good news, Human Interest, media coverage, One Day on Earth project, planet earth