This Question Changed My Life

In my last post, I wrote about the experience my husband and I had with a questionnaire designed to help people feel closer.

The questionnaire encourages people to share some of their thoughts and feelings in a way that becomes more intense as the questions progress.

Question 19 asks, "If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living?"

This is a powerful question, because it requires us to examine our priorities and think about the value of how we spend our time. It asks what we really want from life.

My husband's answer was, "I would sell everything and travel the world with you."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was what I would want to do, too. A few nights later I said, "You don't have to die to travel the world. What if we just did it, sold everything and started traveling?"

It didn't take much discussion for us to agree that this didn't have to be a fantasy. We really could leave our jobs, sell the house, and hit the road.

And that is exactly what we are about to do.
 

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Note: The name of the published study that includes the questionnaire is "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings". You can find it by clicking on the questionnaire link in the above article. If you just want to go straight to the questions, click on this link to a printable version.

Although some sources say it takes about 45 minutes for a couple to answer the questions, I recommend setting aside two hours when you will not be interrupted. That way you can move at a relaxed pace without any pressure to finish too quickly.