What Question is Calling You Today?
– #2 How Might We Listen to Our Future Selves?
- As humans, we struggle to truly consider the needs of our future selves either individually or as a species.
- In psychological terms, this is called a present bias, valuing current rewards over future ones.
– #4 To What Do I Not Pay Attention?
- Attention is our life blood.
- In truth, in any one moment, our attention misses infinitely more than it captures.
- While we are constantly striving to manage our time efficiently, we often find ourselves easily surrendering our attention to trivial distractions like pings or notifications.
- And yet, do we truly understand the price we are paying?
– #8 How Can I Balance Living Fully in the Present While Also Preparing for a Fulfilling Future?
- It feels like there is always a tension between future “goals” and the desire to live life fully in the present.
- We may die tomorrow and yet we may well live to a great age.
- The one thing we know for sure is that we are alive now.
- How might I think about this?
– #21 What Do I Expect?
- What are your expectations for this article?
- How does it help to build up a mental picture in advance?
- Imagine not expecting anything!
- In truth, the more you can free yourself from anything other than what is going on right now, the more powerful your response.
– #32 How is Past Experience Affecting Me?
- We may think the past is past and so is gone.
- And yet, we are ultimately products of the past.
- What are you carrying that you might set down?
– #57 Why Do I Do What I Do?
- We may not control when and where we are born or the circumstances in which we grow up and yet we are nevertheless the architects of our lives.
- Indeed, the assumptions we choose to live by define what we do.
- They make us who we are and who we aren’t.
- And we get to choose them.
- So, who have you decided you aren’t?
– #78 How Do I Decide to Cut My Losses?
- Sunk costs, including time, money and resources already spent, can heavily skew present and future decision-making, causing us to cling to the past.
- Whether it is staying in a movie we don’t enjoy or persisting with a failing project, the sunk cost fallacy can lead to misguided decisions.
- So, when and how do you decide to cut your losses?
– #79 Who Am I in a Group?
- How do you act in groups?
- Are you the same in every group?
- What motivates you?
- How are you different when you are on your own?
- In short, are you the same person on your own and in a group?
– #80 Where Is the Space in My Life?
- The value of empty space—the gaps, the silences, the absences—that can shape our world is a concept as ancient as civilization itself.
- Indeed, Lao Tzu argued that the usefulness of a vessel lay not so much in the clay surround but in the empty space in which something can be carried.
- While the Japanese language has a term for this concept—”ma”—its equivalent seems to be curiously absent from Western thought and vocabulary.
– #84 What is Good Enough?
- Perfect is often the enemy of good.
- And yet, how do you decide what is good enough?
- What mistakes are unacceptable?
- What can be left undone?
- Simplified? Streamlined?
– #93 What Help Am I Walking Past?
- This is a question that goes deep for me.
- As an only child, I was raised to be self-reliant.
- My reflex for much of my life was to go it alone.
- And yet, I have learned, we are never truly alone.
- Help is just a question away.
- What help have you been ignoring?
– #97 Do I Learn More from Questions or Answers?
- From a young age, we are taught by our educational systems that questions serve merely as vehicles to uncover answers.
- Moreover, we often cease to question once we stumble upon a seemingly rational answer.
- But what if the very act of questioning holds inherent value, regardless of the answers it yields?
– #100 How Do I Experience the World?
- We tend to assume that the world is as we experience it.
- In truth, everything we see and hear is an experience created by our senses.
- These senses are primed to keep us safe and allow us to satisfy basic needs.
- As a result, they tend to focus more on sights, sounds and smells that will help with this. They are not designed for accuracy.
- Ever see faces where there weren’t any?
- Have you noticed how a smell fades after a few minutes?
- What about familiar sounds such as church bells? Have you noticed how they get tuned out?
– #102 How Should the World Look?
- Each of us creates the world in our heads.
- And yet, we don’t start from scratch each time.
- We follow rules we have built up over our lives.
- These rules are laid down from early childhood and govern how we think the world operates and “should” behave.
- And yet, what if we had been born in a different time and culture?
- What might the world look like then?
– #106 How Am I Hiding?
- This question stopped me in my tracks when it first came to me.
- The reality is that most of us are hiding in some way from something past, present or future.
- How are you hiding?
- And, equally importantly, where in your life are you hiding?
– #109 What Beautiful Questions Am I Asking?
- In the hustle of daily life, it is easy to lose sight of who we are and why we are doing what we are doing.
- ‘Beautiful questions’ serve as anchors, encouraging us to stop and reflect.
- In a way, all of the questions on this page might be beautiful questions, provided they speak to you. And that is what sets beautiful questions apart.
- They are questions that deeply connect with you, with precisely where you are and what you need right now.
- They help you cross the thresholds that are in front of you.
– #118 What Thoughts Do I Never Have?
- Ever find yourself thinking the same thoughts?
- Wish you could truly think something new and exciting?
- Discover the importance of questioning our ingrained patterns and assumptions and explore how inspiration for fresh thinking can be found in the most unexpected places.
– #212 Where Is My Sanctuary?
- Our culture has a bias towards doing.
- And yet, we all need somewhere where we can tune out distractions and interruptions and just be.
- This is time to meditate, to reflect on where you are going, to nourish your soul or simply to be.
- Where is your sanctuary?
- What does it offer you?
- How do you protect it?
- How can you expand it?
– #296 What Question Is Important for Me?
- Pretty much everything we do is answering one of life’s bigger questions.
- How do I put food on the table?
- How can I find shelter?
- How can I protect my family?
- For religious Christians, how can I get into heaven?
- These are probably on most people’s minds in some form.
- And yet, it goes well beyond these into those questions of which we are scarcely aware.
- How do I increase my status?
- How might I wield more power?
- Or indeed, what is my legacy?
- Regardless of the question, we all have such bigger questions that drive what we do each and every day. What are yours?
– #311 What Have I Changed My Mind About?
- Ever hear the quote often attributed to John Maynard Keynes:
“When the facts change, I change my mind”.
- What about you?
- What do you do?
– #326 What Do I Need to Thrive Today?
- What does thriving mean to you?
- Do you feel you are thriving?
- If not, what might be missing in this moment?
