Your life as a historical novel

This week's little assignment is to rewrite the story of your life in a pre-technological time period. You need to follow the basic narrative of your life as closely as possible, while adapting all of the details of fit in with your chosen historical context. How easy or hard will this assignment be? What aspects of your life would require the trickiest rewriting to fit into an earlier era?

This week's theme is your life as a historical novel.

Tell us a story: Happy Birthday

Tell us a story about the birthday you'll never forget. What was your best, biggest, strangest, or most mixed-up birthday celebration ever?

Your personal clock

What is your best time of day? On days when you are free to arrange your own schedule, how does your day typically go? What part of the day do you have the most energy: morning, afternoon, or evening? When are you most productive? What part of the day do you enjoy the most?

The Goat and the Goose

Social psychologists say that you tend to make friends with people who are similar to you in their values and backgrounds. Do most of your friendships follow this pattern?

Which of your friendships cross cultural lines, challenge stereotypes, or otherwise defy expectations?

This week's theme is old friends.

Social circles

Do most of your friends know each other? Or do you have separate groups of friends in different social settings?

Do you go by different names (or nicknames) among different groups of friends?

This week's theme is old friends.

Long-lost friend

Who is your long-lost friend — someone you still clearly remember but haven't seen for the longest time?

This week's theme is old friends.

We'll look back in 20 years...

What setting from years ago (activity, club, team, class, or job) connected you to several people who remain your friends today? Could you have guessed in advance that it was a prime opportunity to form lasting friendships?

This week's theme is old friends.

Old friends

Which one of your current friends (not counting family members) has been in your life for the longest time?

This week's theme is old friends.

Tell us a story: culinary disaster

What is something you tried to cook, but failed so spectacularly that you never tried it again? What happened? Who had you planned to serve your creation to? What did you end up eating instead?

It's not what you think

What is something that people frequently misunderstand or incorrectly assume about you? What do you wish you could tell everyone, to set the record straight?

Your own personal deity

If you could choose one person, being, or animal to be your own personal guiding spirit, who or what would you choose?

This week's theme is a higher power.

The where and the when of Spirit

Do you feel your higher power or divine spirit all around you all the time, or only in certain places and particular times?

This week's theme is a higher power.

The many faces of God

How does your higher power appear to you? Young? Old? Male? Female? Strong? Brainy?

This week's theme is a higher power.

My invisible friend

When you were a child, did you sometimes feel you were being helped, or watched over, by an invisible presence? Did you think this was God, or something else? Did you have a name for this invisible presence? If you stopped experiencing this being, when did you stop, and why?

This week's theme is a higher power.

A higher power

Are you a religious person? Do you currently believe in God, some other god(s), or any deity or supernatural being?

This week's theme is a higher power.

Tell us a story: April in Paris

What's the best vacation you ever took? What made it so memorable? Was it the place to which you traveled? Was it the person you were with? Or was it something that happened during the course of the trip?

Sinking fast

What is the first sign that your energy level is dropping? Do you usually notice it yourself, or do other people have to point it out?

Standing between two trees

Which side of the family do you feel more connected to — your father's family, or your mother's family?

What is the most obvious difference between the two sides of your extended family? What are the best strengths of each? In what way do you (and your brothers and sisters) embody the combination of these two family lineages?

This week's theme is your extended family.

Remember that guy in the detergent commercial...

What colorful character or famous person turns out to be an ancestor or distant relative of yours?

If you had your druthers, what famous person do you wish you could count as a family member?

This week's theme is your extended family.

It runs in the family

What is one thing about your family that you're not proud of — one unfortunate trait that most members of your extended family seem to have in common?

This week's theme is your extended family.

Homelands

Where did your ancestors come from? How many different countries are represented in your family tree?

Do your living relatives mostly live in one area, or are they geographically scattered? If you had to pick one place as your family's "home," what would it be?

This week's theme is your extended family.

Extended family

At the largest family gathering you ever attended, how many of your relatives were there? How old were you at the time? What kind of event was it?

This week's theme is your extended family.

Tell us a story: pressure cooker

What was one intense, high-pressure experience that seemed nightmarish at the time, but that you remember positively because it helped you to discover new strengths and capabilities?

Your own private Narnia

In the fantasy-movie version of your life, familiar things gain a magical dimension. Your closet door, at unpredictable intervals, turns into a gateway to some wacky or wondrous place. Pretend you're the screenwriter, and let your imagination go there. What inspiring place do you occasionally find in place of your closet?

Opportunity knocks

Every day brings us so many opportunities that we can't pursue all of them. We can't give each one careful thought; there just isn't enough time. With so many opportunities around us all the time, just being able to pay attention to the right ones might be the key to success.

What are some of the things you already do to become aware of opportunities and keep track of them?
How do you decide which opportunities to take, and which to leave behind?
What could you do that would help you notice and pay more attention to your most valuable opportunities?

This week's theme is missed opportunities.

The road not taken

Sometimes you have to choose between two roughly equivalent — but mutually exclusive — opportunities. And sometimes you have to make a choice with precious little solid information to go on. What is one choice that still haunts you, years later, with the niggling (but unprovable) suspicion that the other path might have worked out better for you?

This week's theme is missed opportunities.

If only I had known at the time

Did you ever pass up an opportunity, only to regret it later after learning additional relevant information?

This week's theme is missed opportunities.

I can do it just fine by myself, thank you

Whose help did you unwisely refuse, because you didn't realize at the time how much you were going to need their help? What things might have gone differently if you had accepted their offer of help?

This week's theme is missed opportunities.

Missed opportunities

What was an opportunity that slipped away more quickly than you expected? What was one thing that you wanted, and could have had, if only you had acted quickly enough?

This week's theme is missed opportunities.

Tell us a story: living on the edge

What's something you did — short of anything actually illegal, please! — that was either unscrupulous, immoral, or not quite following the spirit of the law? What — or who — made you do it?

Your Song

If you had to pick one, what song could serve as your personal theme song?