10Q: Reflect. React. Renew.

The vault is closing in less than 24 hours.  Here’s inspiration for those of you finishing up your answers from our friends at AJWS who just launched a new initiative, “Where Do You Give?” which we think is pretty awesome.

Excerpt from their answer to Q8: Is there something (a person, a cause, an idea) that you want to investigate more fully in 2012?

…I realized that I have no idea how much of my own income I give to philanthropic causes… in fact, most months I have no idea where my money goes, period. This is hard for me to admit. I like to think of myself collectively as frugal, responsible and generous with my resources. I also like to think of myself as someone who cares about the world and wants to see some pretty big changes in it…

You can also read the full posting here

Good luck-you can do it!

10QHQ

Dear 10Qers,

Reflection takes courage. It is often hard to reveal the truth about your actions and your dreams even to yourself. So you should be proud of the work you’ve done to “Reflect, React and Renew” during 10Q.

The 10 days of questioning is officially over. Take a look at your answers, and be sure to click the appropriate boxes to let us know if you’d be happy to share your answers, either anonymously or with attribution.

Make sure you finish before the 10Q site goes into lock-down at midnight PST Oct. 11. You have until then to fill in your answers and send them to the vault for safe-keeping. After that, you won’t be able to see the answers until next year–and if you don’t send them into the Vault, you won’t ever see them again.

By sending your answers into the vault, you ensure that on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 2012, your 2011 answers will be coming back to you, providing you with a time capsule of sorts on the self you were this year.

The reactions we’ve gotten from people seeing their 2010 answers this year have been wonderful. 10Q has a real impact on people’s lives.

10Qer Misty Lopez wrote on our 10Q Facebook page what it was like to get her answers back this year:

“Dear 10Q, I’d like to thank you. Today I read my answers from 2010 and it was like… getting stabbed in the heart. I was so angry… and broken. And, I was even pretty darn cocky. I never realized before I read my answers today, just how affected I was by life. I mean, I really was in a bad place; the things that happened really bothered me and I never even knew. I learned so much about myself by reading my answers from last year. I’m really excited to go ahead and do it again this year, even though now I know it’ll suck when I open them back up next year. Thank you so much 10Q for this website you have (doyou10q.com)… It really made a difference in my life. Thanks 10Q.”

So don’t let your work go to waste.  
Go and finish. : If you’ve only saved your answers and haven’t clicked the actual button that says “Send my answers to the Vault” then they have not gone yet.
 
Go. Do it. Now.

Click here if you’re ready to go to your final submission screen.

10Q HQ

10Q:  Life’s Biggest Questions.  Answered By You.

Question 10: When September 2012 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?

The beauty of this kind of annual time capsule experience is that this time next year, you get to visit with yourself and look at where you were at a year back and compare it to to where you’re at now. The confronting thing about this kind of experience is precisely the same thing; you get to visit with your last year’s self and see if you’ve achieved any of the things you dreamed about. In 2010, one person expressed this dichotomy beautifully, “Last year I gave a highly aspirational answer that slapped me in the face as I realized that I am more or less at the same position.  I have only climbed laterally and so with that knowing I’d like to say that by next year I am going to use all of my effort, spirit and imagination to start moving upward.” Others spoke directly and comically to their old selves: “I think I’ll probably laugh at myself.  I tend to take these things too seriously sometimes.  Hi Vick.  Are you in love?  Are you still working at Walgreens?  Are you back in school?  I hope you’re in love.  I want that more for you than anything right now.  Love, Vick.” And some were hopeful about where they would e a year from now: “Hopefully I will smile and think: I knew that setting up goals, thinking about these things and taking them and myself seriously would really help me in achieving it.  Look at all the things I have mastered and achieved during the last year!  Wonderful!  What are my next goals and aspirations?” Where do you think you’ll be this time next year and how do you think you’ll feel about reading your answers from your last years self? And remember, while achieving wishes and dreams are terrific, and it’s important to use 10Q to stop and congratulate yourself for what you have accomplished in a year, confronting ourselves with lack of movement in certain areas of our lives are just as great a gift. Often, we can go for years without realizing or admitting that we are stuck in a certain pattern or rut. Coming face to face with this tangibly in your own life is one of the best ways of propelling change. You are holding yourself accountable to yourself. And that’s a huge gift. However icky it may feel in the beginning. So, take a moment and ask yourself, how do you think you’ll feel this time next year and what might be different as a result of this period of pondering?

Question 9: 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?

We all have basic fears: flying, snakes, spiders. But 10Q tends to bring out the deeper, more emotional fears. Fear of letting people down, fear of failing at work and thus letting down employees and family, and even fear of asking for what we want or need.

It is only through introspection that one can work through those fears. 10Q is free! Cheaper than a therapist!

“I have had the fear of asking for time to myself. I always feel guilty that I am not spending time with my kids or my partner. I need to learn that time alone will allow me to be with them more fully,” confessed one 10Qer.

“I have a fear of letting my wife down when it comes to money. Fear of not making a difference and not leaving my mark on the world,” said another.

“My biggest fear is that the business will collapse, putting at risk all I hold dear. I don’t think it’s very likely, but it’s my only real worry,” a 10Qer mused.

“Fear of failure very often freezes me, causing me to fail. Instead, I hope to simply jump in, fail, get up and jump in again,” said a 10Qer with a simple plan.

Take time today to look inside yourself for your fears and how to deal with them as other 10Qers have.

10Q teamed up with our friends at the Six-Word Memoir Project, Record Setter, Found Magazine, East Side Jews and the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles to host live events in LA and NYC in celebration of the project’s fourth year.

WITH REGRETS, was an evening of storytelling, music, comedy and atonement where top comedians from both coasts gathered to share their biggest confessions of 2011.

Check out our YouTube channel for clips from our NYC and LA events

Thanks to our amazing hosts Jessica Chaffin, Jessi Klein and Laura Krafft as well as our fantastic performers:

Judith Benezra

Nicola Behrman

Michele Carlo

Jonny Diamond

Ben Greenman

Rich Ferguson

Andy Friedman

AJ Jacobs

Starlee Kine

Todd Levin

Mark Malkoff

Talia Osteen & Dov Rosenblatt of THE WELLSPRING

Dan Rollman

Davy Rothbart

Tami Sagher

Joel Stein

Larry Smith

Michela Watkins

Question 7: 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?

Self-improvement is certainly a big part of the American dream. How can I be a better, happier person next year than I am right now? At our cores, the majority of us want to be the best versions of ourselves, and over time, we sometimes realize there are patterns that we experience that prevent that from being the case. Sometimes, it’s the nudge of a friend’s counsel, calling us on our nonsense, that propels us to make a shift, sometimes we see an interview with a person who has achieved what we dreamed for ourselves and it kicks us into action, sometimes we see a slogan on the side of a bus and it speaks to us in strange ways. What would you like to do this year to become the best version of yourself?  Last year, the answers ranged from the specific ” I would like to become more active.  Since retirement I have become very isolated.  Finding people in the age group of 71 plus, who understand that I am from another country and sometimes feel lonely wishing for my Old Friends and Land.” to the abstract, “I want to appreciate the beauty of ‘enough.’ We have enough.  The house is clean enough.  I am enough.” to the Nike inspired: “Just do it!  If you want to move, just move.  If you want to walk, just walk.  If you want to write, just write.  Don’t wait for better circumstances.  Just do it, don’t talk about it.” People talked about wanting to learn languages, explore the world, but many many people talked about wanting to improve their sense of self. Judge less. Criticize less. Be jealous less. Appreciate life more. On a day-to-day basis, what would you like to improve about your life? And what’s a piece of counsel or a thought that you could come back to throughout the year to keep you on track?

Question 6: Describe one thing you’d like to achieve by this time next year. Why is this important to you?

We all make resolutions, whether it is at the Jewish New Year, the calendar New Year or just when we look down at our expanding waistlines. But we don’t always think deeply about what is really important for us to achieve in the coming year. Losing weight is a common one. What will be important for you to achieve this coming year? Is the goal personal or is it for a broader good? In the past 10Qers have had wide-ranging answers: One was surprising, even to the 10Qer doing the reflection: “Never thought bankruptcy would be something I’d want to achieve – it always seemed so ‘dead-end’ and ‘your life is OVER.’ But now to me, it says ‘this means you get to move back home soon.’” Another was personal and realistic: “I’d like to bring my relationship with my wife back to the level it was at when we first met. I understand that we can’t turn back time after 18 years of marriage and five kids. So, what I am hoping to achieve is really something more akin to a renewed spiritual connection that is deeply rooted in a profound respect and love for each other.” You don’t have to have just one goal or one type of goal. Set goals for different parts of your life: physical, emotional, professional, personal. And next year you may be surprised by where you are at when you get your answer back.

Question 5: 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.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s spiritual. For some people, it’s a synagogue or a church or a mosque. For others, it’s a private notion of a deity. For others still, it’s the face of a child in a crib, or the sound of a lover sleeping, or the night sky, or a bird. It’s a highly difficult thing to define and as a result, answering a question about your spiritual experiences can be a highly eccentric exercise. Those who have answered this question in the past have borne out this theory. Last year, one man wrote about learning to build part of his house as a spiritual experience. “I have been generally alienated from work, like many people I know, but when I put the first nail in the first board, it was an amazing feeling.” Another woman wrote about the visits she received from her recently deceased grandmother. “I know that it’s not true, at least in a rational sense,” she wrote, “but they it’s true to me. I heard her voice. I saw her face.” So what was spiritual to you? You can also, if you so choose, focus on the absence of spirituality in your life and whether you think you might want to remedy that.