Use these prompts to capture your story, values, and reflections.
— Pretend that you are at a dinner party and everyone is sitting in a circle. The host invites each person to take just a few minutes to describe the life he or she has lived. If you were at the party and you wanted people to know as much about your life as possible in a few minutes, what would you say? Describe the life you have lived thus far.
— What has given you the greatest sense of meaning and purpose in life? Why does it matter that you were alive?
— What has brought you the greatest happiness in life—the greatest joy moment to moment?
— Tell me about the major “crossroads” moments in your life—times when you went in one direction or another and it made a large difference in terms of how your life turned out.
— What is the best advice you ever got from someone about life? Did you take the advice? How have you used it during your life?
— What do you wish you had learned sooner? If you could go back to when you were a young adult and have a conversation with yourself—and you knew that you would listen—what would you tell the younger person about life?
— Fill in this sentence: “I wish I had…”
— Now that you have lived most of your life, what are you certain (or almost certain) matters a great deal if a person wants to find happiness and live a fulfilling life?
— Now that you have lived most of your life, what are you certain (or almost certain) does not matter very much in finding a happy life? What do you wish you had paid less attention to?
— If you could give only one sentence of advice to those younger than you on finding a happy and meaningful life, what one sentence would you pass on?
— What role has spirituality played in your life?
— What is the greatest fear at the end of life?
— Now that you are older, how do you feel about your mortality—about death? Not death in the abstract, but your death. Are you afraid of dying?
— What roles have spirituality and religion played in your life? What have you concluded about God?