100 Questions

Some time last year, I started listening to an audio book about Leonardo da Vinci, and how he thought. In this book, it talked a lot about being able to think differently from everyone else, and having a variety of skills that you are particularly good at. One section, dealing with introspection, said to get a pen and paper, and write down 100 questions. These questions are important questions that are important to you.

This seemed like a daunting task, but I was in school at the time, and decided to work on this in class. Should I have been paying attention to class?  Sure.  But somehow I still managed to graduate, so we'll let it slide.

I started with the big questions, like "How do I know God?" and "How do I live well?"  But as the list went on, they started moving from these kind of questions, to far more personal questions, like "Why do I want to be a writer?" and "Why is pride so easy for me?"

The exercise then said to take these 100 questions and find your top 10.  Of these top 10, pick 1 and spend time thinking and writing about it; Develop it, go deep, and keep stripping away the layers.  This teaches us to not only seek questions, but also to mature those questions into meaningful thought.  

I have found this to be a very helpful exercise, and every once in a while, I take one of these questions as a prompt for my writing projects. It's not as daunting as you might think.  Just start with the big ones, and keep thinking until you have reached 100. You'll find you are more prone to think deeply about things you otherwise wouldn't have noticed.