April 2011 Newsletter
Online Issue # 27

Practice Page

“Nothing happens next. This is it.”

Cartoon Published in The New Yorker
8/25/1980 by Gahan Wilson

The line above appears in a cartoon showing two monks seated side by side, meditating. The older monk is responding to the novice who has asked the question, “What happens next?”

The young monk's question is similar to a question one of my students reported asking himself for most of his life. As he went from one accomplishment to the next, he rarely paused. There was alway the driving question, “What's next?” Then one day he stopped long enough to consider an equally important question, “What's now?” As he paused to think about his life, he realized the magnitude of his accomplishments and the many ways in which he was blessed. In order to truly enjoy the life he had, he decided to change his focus and ask a new question, “What's now?” 

Interview Yourself

Identify a few key questions and use them to conduct a written interview with yourself.

Begin by pausing. Listen to any and all questions that occur to you. Write them down the way you hear them. Don't worry about finding better or more perfect questions. Instead, make a list of the questions you hear, knowing that you can refine them later.

The following are examples that might help you to start hearing your own questions:

What's next?
What's now?
Who inspires me to live true to myself? 
What inspires me?
What is the most wonderful thing I can imagine happening in my life?
What do I like about the person I've become? 
What is everyone else doing that I'm doing too? ....that I'm resisting?
What is my relationship with the present? ....with my future?
What are the most important things I've learned from living my life?

Select the questions you want to use for your interview with yourself. Respond to each question, rather than trying to answer it as though it had one correct answer. Allow yourself to be curious about what your response will be.

This is one listening-writing experiment that benefits from being typed and printed. Most of the interviews we encounter are in typed format, rather than handwritten. Seeing your own interview, looking like the others, gives you an opportunity to experience yourself in a new way.

I predict your interview will be as interesting to you as any you might read. 

Laurie Mattila 
© April 2011

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