Top Ten: easy targets

Think of the familiar knots of difficulty in your daily life: things that you tend to avoid doing; tasks where you often get bogged down; goals that are clouded in a fog of uncertainty; and temperamental, failure-prone devices that you have to use.

What are ten things in your life that seem more difficult than necessary? To look at it on the positive side, what ten tasks or areas represent the greatest potential for making your life easier?

Top Ten: shoe phones, pen lasers, and the awesome power to cloud men's minds

What are ten secret weapons you'd like to have to bring to bear on your problems?

Top Ten: table for two

Besides your own home, what are ten places you like to eat?

Top ten: winning events

What are ten competitive games or sports that you are likely to win at — or at least enjoy the challenge of competing and doing your best? Think of team sports, individual sports, board games, trivia games, cookoffs, online competitions, or any venue where you put your skill to the test and try to win a game or a prize. What are your best events?

Top ten: home enhancement

What are ten realistic and affordable things you could do to make your living space more liveable?

Top ten: best possible decade

In your most optimistic frame of mind, what are ten things you would like to see happen in the next ten years?

Top ten: gratitude round up

Looking over the entire year, what ten things are you grateful for? What benefited you the most this year? What factors outside of your control worked in your favor?

Top Ten: 2009 in review, part 1

Looking back at the year, what were the ten lowest points for you? These are bad things that happened, twists and turns that were unexpected and unwanted, difficulties and obstacles, and just generally unfortunate turns of fate or luck.

(A more cheerful top ten is coming next Sunday!)

Top Ten: clothes make the wo/man

All your clothing reflects your personal style, but what ten pieces of your wardrobe — anything from head to foot! — distill the true essence of your unique look?

Top Ten: regrets and mistakes

What are ten things that you are sorry you did—actions or decisions that you would take back and do differently if you could?

Top Ten: shopping whims

There are things we buy out of necessity or obligation, and there are other things that are not so easy to justify buying. Sometimes these turn out to be our most treasured things, and sometimes they are just a waste of money.

What are ten of the most frivolous purchases you have made?

Top Ten: rules you live by

What are ten simple principles or values that guide your life?

Top Ten: things you're not doing

What are ten things that you constantly put off, finding anything else to do to delay having to do them?

Top Ten: worth a hike

Suppose you were temporarily without a car in a place where you had to walk a significant distance to get into town. What are ten things, ordinary items or extraordinary opportunities, that could easily be worth making a walk of a mile or two, if that's what it took?

Top Ten: yikes!

What are ten things you're scared of, whether the fear is rational or irrational?

List of phobias

Top Ten: on your hit parade

What are ten songs that hold a lot of meaning for you, that perhaps even make you stop and listen when you hear them playing somewhere? Try to come up with one word or short phrase that encapsulates each song's meaning for you.

Billboard's Hot 100 (click "View Chart Archives" to pick your own date)

Top Ten: first impressions

Maybe you could tell right away that you would be best friends forever. Or maybe you said, "What an arrogant, conceited jerk!"

What are ten occasions when you met someone for the first time, and he or she made a strong, definite impression on you — whether favorable or unfavorable?

Top Ten: reasons to feel hopeful

Whether they make the news or not, people near and far are finding ways to make things better. They are curing diseases, finding new solutions to old problems, inventing useful things, and removing hassles and irritations. In your own life, people are constantly busy about things that directly or indirectly benefit you. As Rob Breszny puts it, "the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings."

What are ten things, big or small, that are happening already or could reasonably happen in the near future to make your life better?

Top Ten: problems you prevented

Heroes who sweep in to handle a crisis get plenty of attention and praise, but it's an often-noted irony that you rarely get credit for preventing a crisis. Nothing happens; it's a non-event; and often no one but you knows what you did to keep things from going off the rails.

What are ten problems (large or small) that you prevented, crises that you averted, or disasters that didn't happen because you were there to stop them?

You might have to dig through your memories to answer this question, but it's worth taking the time to give yourself another silent round of applause. Did your well-timed advice keep a friend from making an expensive mistake? Did you recognize someone's symptoms and help steer them towards getting appropriate medical care? Did you talk someone out of taking rash action in a moment of anger or desperation? Were you at the right place at the right time to hold things together when they otherwise would have fallen apart?

Top Ten: Ha, who needs that!

What are ten modern conveniences that you're pretty sure you could live without?