Great Questions to Life

THE GREAT QUESTIONS
that fill in the blanks of so many big pictures

(from Gordon MacDonald, A RESILIENT LIFE (Nelson Books, 2004), pp.
52ff.)


TWENTY-SOMETHINGS:

What kind of a man or woman am I becoming?

How am I different from my mother or father?

Where can I find a few friends who will welcome me as I am and who
will offer the familylike connections that I need (or never had)?

Can I love, and am I lovable?

What will I do with my life? What is it that I really want in
exchange for my life's labours?

What parts of me and my life need correction?

Around what person or conviction will I organize my life?


THIRTY-SOMETHINGS:

How do I prioritize the demands being made on my life?

How far can I go in fulfilling my sense of purpose?

Who are the people with whom I know I walk through life?

What does my spiritual life look like?

Do I even have time for one?

Why am I not a better person?


FORTY-SOMETHINGS:

Who was I as a child, and what powers back then influence the kind of
person I am today?

Why do some people seem to be doing better than I?

Why am I often disappointed in myself and others?

Why are limitations beginning to outnumber options?

Why do I seem to face so many uncertainties?

What can I do to make a greater contribution to my generation?

What would it take to pick up a whole new calling in life and do the
thing I've always wanted to do?


FIFTY-SOMETHINGS:

Why is time moving so fast?

Why is my body becoming unreliable?

How do I deal with my failures and my successes?

How can my spouse and I reinvigorate our relationship now that the
children are gone?

Who are these young people who want to replace me?

What do I do with my doubts and fears?

Will we have enough money for the retirement years if there are health
problems and economic downturns?


SIXTY-SOMETHINGS:

When do I stop doing the things that have always defined me?

Why do I feel ignored by a large part of the younger population?

Why am I curious about who is listed in the obituary column of the
papers, how they died, and what kinds of lives they lived?

What is yet to be accomplished, and do I have enough time to do all
the things I've dreamed about in the past?

Who will be around me when I die?

And, if married, which one of us will go first, and what is it like to
say good-bye to someone with whom you have shared so many years of
life?

Are the things I've believed in capable of taking me to the end?

Is there really life after death?

What do I regret?

And what are the chief satisfactions of these many years of living?

What have I done that will outlive me?


IN OUR SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES:

Does anyone realize, or even care, who I once was?

Is anyone aware that I once owned [or managed] a business, threw a
mean curveball, taught school, possessed a beautiful solo voice, had
an attractive face?

Is my story important to anyone?

How much of my life can I still control?

Is there anything I can still contribute?

Why this anger and irritability?

Is God really there for me?

Am I ready to face death?

And when I die (how will it happen?), will I be missed, or will the
news of my death bring relief?

Heaven? What is it like?