Week 1 · Lesson 2
The Work
Eight questions. What you write is read by your facilitator and by nobody else. It does not go to your officer, your school, or your family, and it is not in any report. Two of these you do not write down at all.
Week 1 of 23 · Identity and Purpose
What was the first turn? Not the day you got caught. Go back further and write the smallest thing you can find that pointed you here.
What is the difference between surviving and living?
- A Nothing, they are the same thing.
- B Surviving asks what do I do so tonight does not go bad. Living asks what am I building.
- C Surviving is for people with no money.
- D Living means having something to show for it.
Your last decision made in survival mode. What question were you actually answering? Would you have answered it the same if you knew you would be here at fifty?
Nobody reads this one. There is a number in your head for how long you expect to be here. What is it, and where did it come from?
The turn where you stopped asking for help. What happened the last time you asked? Then write who has been paying for that since who had nothing to do with it.
Two kids, same building, same offer. One takes it and one does not. What made the difference?
- A One had better character.
- B One was smarter about it.
- C Who was around that week, and whether anybody would notice if they were gone.
- D One was scared and one was not.
His father saw him a long way off. What does that detail tell you?
- A The son was making noise coming up the road.
- B The father had been watching that road every day since he left.
- C The property was small.
- D Somebody told him he was coming.
The son rehearsed a speech and never got to finish it. Write yours out, word for word, exactly what you would say to God about why He should take you back. Then look at how much of it is you trying to earn something.
Nothing you write here goes to your officer, your school or your family.
Defining Narratives · Week 1 Written work