This year marked my tenth year participating in 10Q. It’s a service provided by Reboot, a non-profit whose aim is to reimagine and reinforce Jewish thought and traditions. Somewhere in the back end of their website now are 100 paragraphs I’ve written over the past decade, each reflecting on an aspect of the year just past and grasping after visions of the next.
I am not Jewish, but there is something special about sitting still and facing yourself in September–the start of the school year, even for those of us no longer in school. Every Autumn, 10Q sends me 10 questions, one after another, for 10 days:
Describe a significant experience that has happened in the past year. How did it affect you? Are you grateful? Relieved? Resentful? Inspired?
Is there something that you wish you had done differently this past year? Alternatively, is there something you’re especially proud of from this past year?
Think about a major milestone that happened with your family this past year. How has this affected you?
Describe an event in the world that has impacted you this year. How? Why?
Have you had any particularly spiritual experiences this past year? How has this experience affected you? “Spiritual” can be broadly defined to include secular spiritual experiences: artistic, cultural, and so forth.
Describe one thing you’d like to achieve by this time next year. Why is this important to you?
How would you like to improve yourself and your life next year? Is there a piece of advice or counsel you received in the past year that could guide you?
Is there something (a person, a cause, an idea) that you want to investigate more fully this year?
What is a fear that you have and how has it limited you? How do you plan on letting it go or overcoming it in the coming year?
When September of next year rolls around and you receive your answers to your 10Q questions, how do you think you’ll feel? What do you think/hope might be different about your life and where you’re at as a result of thinking about and answering these questions?
Plus a bonus question: What are your predictions for next year?
Then it locks up my answers in a virtual vault. The following September when the Jewish high holy days roll around, they do it again and invite me—for a limited time—to look at my answers to those same questions from previous years.
I start to see patterns. The years when my answers are the most upbeat are the ones in which I have taken some huge, audacious swings, and one or two have paid off. I should schedule in some daring this year, I think.
The betrayals and setbacks that floored me when I once wrote about them have lost their sting entirely now. I should step out of my current dramas and remember the world is always larger than I imagine.
Little memories come back, summoned by my old writings, like those mornings I used to run alongside my son’s cross-country team when he was in primary school, just to combine some exercise with some parental encouragement.
Here is the piece I wrote after that first year of 10Q, when I was still awakening to the novelty of the time capsule I had discovered. Little did I know it would become a lasting ritual – one I hope to continue as long as these precious questions keep arriving in my inbox. If the self-interrogation appeals, you can sign up, too. Just when you’ve forgotten all about it, there it will be amongst your emails, inviting you to step away for just a moment.
Image: Dall-e