I’m not sure you’ve noticed but periodically over the last 18 months I’ve posted a series of questions to help people examine their lives. Some of the responses from readers were excellent and a few others not so much. I took some time off from posting these questions due to a recent injury, but I would like to continue today with ten additional questions, Installment #12. If you find them interesting, you might want to check my archives for the first eleven installments. I last posted on this subject on 5/2/23. Answer the questions honestly with your spouse and/or partner. It will definitely make for interesting conversations and discussions. Here we go . . .
How old were you when you first had sexual intercourse?
If you are leading 100 people, whose lives are in danger, and you must choose between two courses of action. One would save only 90 people; the other would have a 50% chance of saving everyone but were it to fail everyone would die. Which would you choose?
If you went to a movie with a friend and it was lousy, would you leave?
For $1 million would you be willing to never again see or talk to your best friend?
What do you like best about your life? least?
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Have you ever disliked someone for being lucky or more successful than you?
A cave-in occurs while you and a stranger are in a concrete room deep in a mineshaft. Before the phone goes dead, you learn the entire mine is sealed and the air hole being drilled will not reach you for 30 hours. If you both take sleeping pills from the medicine chest, the oxygen will last for only 20 hours. Both of you can’t survive; alone, one of you might. After you both realize this, the stranger takes several sleeping pills, says that it is in God’s hands, and falls asleep. You have a pistol; what do you do?
When you are given a compliment do you usually acknowledge it or suggest that you really do not deserve it?
What sorts of things would you do if you could be as outgoing and uninhibited as you wish? Do you usually initiate friendships or wait to be approached?
If you decided to do something and your friends strongly advise you not to, could you do it anyway?
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Another few installments will follow, and they will finish this series. I know how much I’ve enjoyed the discussions that they’ve created with my better-half, and I hope you give them a try.
To date, I’ve posted 165 questions in 11 installments. Those questions were relatively simple questions to deal with but the deeper into this list we go the more difficult they become. So, let’s get started with installment number 12 and see how you fare.
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If you wanted to look very sexy, how would you dress?
For $2000 would you be willing to stand up in a crowded restaurant and, for at least a minute, loudly berate a waitress for some trivial imperfection in the service? If not, consider how grateful the waitress would be if you did so and later split the money with her.
If there were a public execution on television, would you watch it?
If someone offered you a large amount of money for some information about one of your company’s products, would you except it? Assume you know you wouldn’t be discovered.
Do you consider yourself well organized? How often do you have to look for your keys?
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If you could increase your IQ by 40 points by having an ugly scar stretching from your mouth to your eye, would you do so?
Would you be willing to do something very unsatisfying i.e. cleaning toilets, for five years if you were certain that the experience would afterwards bring you a deep sense of personal fulfillment for the rest of your life?
What things are too personal to discuss with others?
Walking along an empty street, you notice a wallet. It contains $5000 in cash but no name or address. What would you do? Would it alter your decision if inside you found the name, address, and picture of either a wealthy looking young man or a frail looking old woman?
Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?
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Would you be content with the marriage of the highest quality in all respects but one – it completely lacked sex?
When was the last time you stole something? Why haven’t you stolen anything since then?
How many of your friendships lasted more than 10 years? Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you 10 years from now?
If you could mold to your liking your memories of any past experience, would you do so?
Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say?
I thought I’d continue with another installment of interesting questions created to assist us in self-evaluation. These installments have made for some lively discussions with my better-half after we discovered some surprisingly different answers. I hope you have a partner or spouse to discuss them with. It can be quite enlightening.
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If you knew your child would be severely retarded and would die by the age of five, would you decide to have an abortion?
Do you find it hard to say “no” when you regularly do favors you do not want to do? If so, why?
If you began to be very attracted to someone of another race, how would your behavior differ from what it would be toward someone of your own race?
Would you rather spend a month on vacation with your parents or put in overtime at your current job for four weeks without extra compensation?
Would you like to know the precise day of your death?
Would you accept a guaranteed, lifetime allowance of $50,000 per year (adjusted annually for inflation) if accepting it meant you could never again earn money from either work or investments.
What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
Do you ever spit or pick your nose in public? What about cleaning your teeth with a toothpick?
A close friend asks, and genuinely wants your opinion about something, but your opinion is one that he is likely to find quite painful. For example, your friend is an artist and asks your honest estimate of his chances of being successful. You think he is an atrocious artist who hasn’t the slightest chance of success. What would you do?
Do you have a favorite sexual fantasy? Would you like to have it fulfilled?
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”Socrates
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Welcome to installment number seven. These questions appear a little harder to answer simply. Only a frank discussion will bring the answers, both good and bad. Have fun . . .
Would you rather play a game with someone more or less talented as you? Would it matter who’s watching?
Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
While in the government, you discover the President is committing extortion and other serious crimes. By exposing the situation, you might bring about the President’s downfall, but your career would be destroyed because you would be framed, fired, and suffer public humiliation on other matters. Knowing you would be vindicated five years later; would you blow the whistle? What if you knew you would never be vindicated?
On a busy street you are approached apologetically by a well-dressed stranger who asks for a dollar to catch a bus and make a phone call. He says he has lost his wallet. What would you do? If approached in the same way by a haggard looking stranger claiming to be hungry and unable to find a job, what would you do?
If by sacrificing your life you could contribute so much to the world that you would be honored in all nations, would you be willing to do so? If so, would you make the same sacrifice knowing that someone you thoroughly disliked would receive the honor while you went unrecognized?
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Knowing you had a 50% chance of winning and would be paid 10 times the amount of your bet if you won, what fraction of what you now own would you be willing to wager?
What are your most compulsive habits? Do you regularly struggled to break these habits?
You know you will die of an incurable disease within three months. Would you allow yourself to be frozen within the week if you knew it would give you a modest chance of being revived in 1000 years and living a greatly extended life?
You are driving late at night in a safe but deserted neighborhood when a dog suddenly darts in front of your car. Though you slam on the brakes, you hit the animal. Would you stop to see how injured the animal was? If you did so and found that the dog was dead but had a name tag, would you contact the owner?
What do you most strive for in your life: accomplishment, security, love, power, excitement, knowledge, or something else?
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An eccentric millionaire offers to donate a large sum to charity if you will step completely naked from a car onto a busy downtown street, walk four blocks, and climb back into the car. Knowing that there would be no danger of physical abuse, would you do it?
How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people?
Is the fact that you have never done something before increase or decrease its appeal to you?
Would you be willing to give up sex for five years if you could have wonderfully sensual and erotic dreams any night you wished?
At a meal, your friends start belittling a common acquaintance. If you felt their criticisms were unjustified, would you defend the person?
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