One of my favorite authors, Dan Pink, posed a couple questions in his new book Drive.

What is my sentence?

Am I better today than yesterday?

The first question is a bit cryptic. So, check out this short video that explains it well.

I have heard of teachers assigning the first question to their students. From some examples, I saw many answered it as a goal—in the distant future. Whether you write it in the past tense, present, or future tense, it is a cool exercise.

It is not like writing an autobiography, more of a synopsis. I heard a sermon once where the gist was the dash. Not the year of your birth, nor the year of your death were that important. What counted was what happened during the dash in the middle.

In a similar vein, Not quite what I was planning: six-word memoirs by writers famous and obscure was a compilation of six word memoirs from the famous and obscure. Touching, funny, sad, or sad, some rose to level of poetry.

The bottom line to me is how do you think about your life and does it have a purpose?