Category: Daily Prompt
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Boogie Wonderland
What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood? I’m a little surprised, but the first song that comes to mind is Earth, Wind & Fire’s Boogie Wonderland. It is not really my kind of music. At least, it is not the kind of song that I would play by choice, but when…
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The Truest Sentence
What is a fear you’ve overcome — and how did you do it? I have often been afraid that I do not have much to offer. I sit down to write and wonder whether the thought is too ordinary. Someone else has probably said it better. Someone else has probably said it with more learning,…
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Entrusted
What is the best way to build self-confidence? I am not sure self-confidence is the right place to begin. It can sound like trying to convince myself that I am impressive, capable, and ready. A better word, for me, is entrusted. I have been given certain gifts, responsibilities, people to care for, and work to…
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How Do You Build Loyal Subscribers?
How do you build loyal subscribers? I’m not sure you do. The question sounds like something from marketing. How do you build loyal subscribers? How do you grow an audience? How do you keep people coming back? I understand the question. Anyone who writes and shares their writing knows the quiet hope that someone will…
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Charity Begins at Home
Share a proverb you think is completely wrong and make your case. “Charity begins at home” sounds sensible enough. It means we should care first for the people nearest to us. Our family. Our neighbours. Our local communities. The people we actually live with. There is something right about that. It is easy to care…
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Soulmates
Do you believe in soulmates? Why or why not? A soulmate and a best friend are not the same. A best friend is someone you trust, enjoy, rely on, and choose to share life with. A soulmate is someone who reaches something deeper in you: someone whose presence feels like recognition, not just companionship. A…
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The Forest Without Birds
What’s something you’d love to see in the futurebut know you probably won’t live to witness? We arrived in Cao Bằng today after driving through the far northeast of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. The landscape is astonishing. Limestone mountains rise from the valleys. Terraces cut across the hillsides. Villages sit in unlikely places.…
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Lunch in Lo Lo Chai
Do you believe in minimalism? At lunchtime in Lo Lo Chai, the village had gone quiet. Doors were half open. The heat sat in the laneways. People were resting. Not because the life is easy. It is not. People here work hard. They are industrious. The day begins early. Work fills the morning, pauses for…
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Good Morning Vietnam
What is a moment in your life that felt like it was straight out of a movie? On the flight to Vietnam, a family sat behind us: a couple with their teenage son. My wife is a psychologist, and she noticed almost immediately that he was neurodiverse. For much of the nine-hour flight, he repeated…
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A Fruit Cart in Hanoi
Go on a walk today and share a photo of something that catches your eye. We are on a short holiday in Vietnam. This is our first day, so we started with a tour of Hanoi. We were walking through the city when we saw this woman with her fruit cart. She was standing in…
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Lord of the Flies
What is the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day? I was sixteen when I read Lord of the Flies. It is the first book I remember finishing. It was set reading at school. Not the first book I started. The first one I remember getting to the end of. What…
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The Work That Waits Quietly
What’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it? I have worked in places where the day begins before you are ready for it. There are messages waiting when you open the computer. Someone wants a decision. Someone else needs support. There is a meeting at nine and another one…
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A 24-Hour Scholarship
If you had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, what would you do? If I had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, I would not buy anything spectacular. I would buy breathing space. I would start with students from war-torn countries who came here with a plan. Their families had saved. They had sacrificed. There…
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Green Wing
What’s a show that had the perfect series finale? I am not really a series person, which makes this prompt harder than it should be. There is really only one show we binge watched: Green Wing. It was a British comedy set in a fictional hospital, East Hampton Hospital. On the surface, it was a…
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What Were You Thinking?
If you could have dinner with any philosopher who would it be? Last year I read Warren Ward’s Lovers of Philosophy. I read it one chapter at a time, sometimes I couldn’t wait for the next chapter. Ward writes about philosophers and their intimate lives. Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida. Men with large…
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Listening to Fear
How do you handle fear and self-doubt? I have faced plenty of self-doubt over the years, mainly in the form of imposter syndrome. When I started my doctorate, I had a nagging sense that I would be found out. I felt as though they had let me in by mistake. Not a clerical error, but…
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Unsettled
What’s a moment that made you question reality? Fifteen months ago we went to Antarctica. It was my wife’s birthday present. More than that, it was something she had wanted to do since she was a little girl. I had known this about her for years. Some people want to see Paris or the pyramids…
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Out of My Depth
What’s a movie you expected to hate but ended up loving? A couple of years ago my wife and I went to see Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka at the Avalon cinema. It was not a film I knew anything about. My wife loves Avalon and knew that it was showing on one of those…
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An Infinite Hunger
What is the meaning of life? At the beginning of the year I sat with a student who was trying to decide whether to change degrees. He had come to the college office after lunch and had waited near the doorway until I looked up from my desk. He said he only needed five minutes.…
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To Be Honest
What is a word or phrase that annoys you? There comes a time in every conversation when someone takes a deep breath, lowers their voice slightly, looks you in the eye, and says the three words that should make every sensible person reach for cover. “To be honest…” At which point I always want to…
The Afterword 