What You Can Reach

“Time flies, and one day I think you will regret if you don’t reach what you can reach. You should demand more from you. This is not me demanding more from you. You should demand more from you.” 

— Jose Mourinho 

Jose Mourinho is a soccer coach (or football in most of the world), and he gave this advice to a player who was very talented but didn’t seem to be focused on working hard to maximize that talent. If this advice was given to you, what would you think of it? Would it make you want to reach what you can reach? What do you imagine you can reach? What do you imagine you would you regret later in life if you didn’t demand more from yourself now? How do you typically respond to demands from others? Does this advice feel any different because it suggests self-motivation rather than an external demand? What specific steps would you consider taking to begin demanding more from yourself, in line with Mourinho’s advice?

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Your Own Herald

If you got to have a herald follow you around and announce you — or a message of your choosing — to everyone whenever you went anywhere, what would you want them to announce? Around 1000 years ago, it was the job of heralds to announce the names and titles of knights and royalty or to announce important messages or royal proclamations. If you got to have one now, what would you have them say? How would that go? Would you make up important titles for yourself or have them announce your accomplishments to the world or share some message that you really think everyone should hear? 

Share your thinking and make sure to use details and examples to support what you have to say. 

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A Place to Think 

What would be the perfect place for you to be able to do some deep thinking? If you got to design your very own space for you to go to think deeply about something important, what would that place be like? 

All our brains are different and have different needs and wiring, so what might work for one person might not work at all for someone else. Some people need things like music and colors and clutter and movement to think, and some people need things like stillness and darkness and calm and quiet. Maybe for some people it’s a room with whiteboards for walls and a trampoline for a floor, or for some it might be an empty library filled with old books. Maybe it’s a lawn chair in a zen garden or a hammock in the sun next to a burbling stream or a pile of blankets in a cozy cave with a roaring fire.

What about for you? If you got the chance to design an ideal thinking space for yourself, what would you want it to be like?  Share your thoughts on what comes to mind for you when designing your ideal thinking space.

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Villain Investment Pitches 

Imagine that there is a tv show for aspiring super villains where they get to go in front a panel of judges (maybe a panel of some of the most notorious criminal masterminds?) and pitch their evil inventions and villainous schemes. The judges hear the ideas and then decide which evil plan or invention they will fund. 

You can either tell a story about this scenario or pitch an evil invention or plan from the perspective of one of these aspiring villains. 

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light switch parallel worlds

According to Nathan W. Pyle, if you find a light switch that doesn’t control anything, then it “likely switches you between two nearly identical parallel worlds.” 

Tell the story of someone who flips a light switch that doesn’t seem to do anything … that is, until things start to seem just ever so slightly different …

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Can you describe yourself the way that an author would describe you if you were a character in a novel?

Share your thinking and make sure to use details and examples to support what you have to say. 

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Young and Unhappy

USA Today shared an article about how the World Happiness Report shows a significant decline in happiness of young Americans. The article speculates about the causes but notes that “researchers agree that there’s no one cause for the decline, rather a cluster of factors that’s driving young people to dissatisfaction….” What do you think of this? Does this decline in happiness make sense to you? Why do you think young people in the U.S. are reporting lower levels of happiness compared to previous generations and compared to young people in some other parts of the world? Do you have ideas for what could be done about this? 

Share your thinking and make sure to use details and examples to support what you have to say. 

Article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/21/world-happiness-report-young-people-u-s/73051010007/ 

The Perfect Care Package
If someone sent you a care package that you got to open right now, what would you want it to have in it? What five things would you want to have in it? Why those things? Share your thoughts on what you would want included in the care package and why you would want those things.

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Never Meet Your Heroes

Have you heard that phrase, “never meet your heroes”? It’s fairly common advice, and it probably has something to do with the idea that the person that shows up in popular media is not the same as the real person, who is often disappointing in comparison. This probably happens because we tend to idealize our heroes in our minds, and the real person probably can’t live up to that ideal. 

All that said, do you ever imagine what it would be like to meet one of your heroes? Who would you be interested in meeting and how do you imagine it going? What would you talk about? How would that conversation go? What do you think you would say or ask? What do you think they would share with you? Do you think the “never meet your heroes” advice would be true for them? In other words, do you think the idealized version of them might not match up to the real person? Share your thinking on meeting one of your heroes. 

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Modern Amulets

Do you know what an amulet is? An amulet is an object, usually a piece of jewelry, that people wore or kept near them because they believed that it had special powers to heal or protect or bring good fortune or have some kind of helpful effect. They were very popular in the past and people used them for all kinds of things: “Medieval England had amulets for everything: to preserve health, to protect grain from vermin, to help children understand crows …”* 

What if wearing an amulet was just as popular today as it used to be? Can you imagine what it would be like if these modern amulets were used for a similarly wide range of reasons? Knowing that people in the past had amulets to help them with such a wide range of things, from health to getting along better with animals, what ideas do you have for what people today would want their modern day amulets to do? An amulet for getting better wifi? An amulet for getting better food from the cafeteria? An amulet for having less test anxiety? An amulet for looking better in social media pictures and videos? 

What ideas do you have for modern day amulets? What kinds of amulets do you think people would wear? Share your thinking as you imagine what it would be like to have modern day amulets. 

Narrative option: tell a story set in a world with modern day amulets that actually work. 

*from Arts & Letters Daily about this article by Tom Johnson “I adjure you, egg” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/tom-johnson/i-adjure-you-egg

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“Write what should not be forgotten.”  — Isabel Allende

What do you know that should not be forgotten? What have you seen? What have you heard? What have you experienced? What has happened inside you that you do not want to forget? What has happened in the world? What do you think should not be forgotten? Share your thinking on what should not be forgotten. 

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“After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager!’”

— William S. Burroughs

Imagine you are the manager of Planet Earth, responsible for all of its operations, maintenance, and overall well-being. One morning, you receive an unexpected visit from an interstellar traveler, someone from a far-off galaxy who has heard mixed reviews about Earth and has decided they need to see things for themselves. After spending a few days checking out bunch of notable places on the planet, they come to see you with some concerns … 

Information / Expository option: What do you think that visit from outer space has to say? Share your thinking on what concerns they might share. How would you respond? 

Narrative option: tell the story of that visitor from outer space, their visit to Earth, and the concerns they share with Earth’s manager. 

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What classes should everyone have to take? 

Take a look at this list of classes. If you had to make three of these classes required for students to take before they graduate high school, which three would you choose? Why those three? Is it hard to pick just three? Are there others that you think should be considered or that you would include on your list? Are there some that definitely shouldn’t be required? Share your thinking about what classes you think everyone should have to take. 

• Basic Cooking
• Basic Home Repair
• Self Defense
• Survival Skills
• First Aid
• Social Etiquette
• Public Speaking
• Car Maintenance
• Stress Management
• Personal Finance and Taxes
• Mental Health First Aid
• Coding / Computer Programming
• Working with AI 

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“If things were simple, word would have gotten around.”

— Jacques Derrida [a famous French philosopher]

Informative / explanatory option: Things aren’t simple. Things can, in fact, be pretty complicated. What’s been complicated for you lately? School? Family? Relationships? The world? Something else? Are there things that you feel are more complicated than they should be? How does it feel knowing that things are complicated for other people too? Does it feel helpful at all to share how things are complicated for you and to know that things are complicated for others as well? 

Narrative option: Imagine a character who feels overwhelmed with something in their life that feels more complicated than it needs to be. What is it? How do they handle that? Tell their story. 

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What do you think is important for a city? 

A recent article on Axios named, “the best-performing U.S. cities.” It shared the top cities by the data by finding the cities that had “high wages, plentiful jobs, a (relatively) low cost of living, and thriving tech sectors.”

Are these the things that matter to you in a city? If you had to move to a new city, what would matter to you? What do you think you should look for or care about the city having? There’s a lot you could consider: size, location, climate, low crime rate, or even entertainment. Are some of these things important to you? Which ones and why? Are there other things that matter more to you? Public spaces like parks? The music scene? Public transportation? Architecture? Something else? Share and explain your thinking about what you think is important for a city to have.

Narrative option: tell the story of someone who moves to a new city. Does that city have what they think they want? How are their expectations either met or not met? 

🦄✏️ Check out unicornwriting.com for more prompts and resources including the FREE Writing Prompts Starter Pack. Or follow along with unicornwriting on Instagram. 🦄✏️