I could have said, ‘games’, but I didn’t want to give the wrong impression. In another lifetime when I was an undergraduate, the people in my dorm liked to spend time late at night, after preparing for whatever classes were to happen the next day, by discussing those ‘deep’ question of life. Actually we would play what we called mind challenges to unwind. An example is: to consider the question, “Are there any absolutes?” We’d have great fun doing this. (The answer, by the way, if you said ‘no’ was an absolute, thus there was no way round this one.) Perhaps somewhat ‘sophomoric’ but it was a good exercise in what we actually believed.
One ‘teaser’ I remember was something that has stayed with me throughout the years. The question posed was: If you knew you had only 24 hours to live, how would you spend your time? What people would you want to say ‘good by’ to? Regardless of age, this is an interesting speculation. The context for the response is that you’d be living the life you were living at the time with whoever and whatever was populating your life. So… what about you? What would you want to do, to say, to be, to accomplish, to be with right now if you only had 24 hours?
This really isn’t just idle speculation. As Christians we should always be ready to depart for our true home. For me this means that I really don’t like to leave unfinished ‘things’ on my plate. Obviously this will undoubtedly happen, but how much can I live in the moment and still prepare for the future without leaving the unfinished? Living intentional seems to be the foundation to this. Living, being intentional is always a choice. What do I mean?
Webster defines intentional as: “deliberate, on purpose, intended, considered, planned…” Intentional is not a mindlessness or serendipitous. You determine in advance what, when, with whom, how. It doesn’t mean that you ignore the serendipitous or spontaneous (fill in the blank), it really means that you are aware and living in the aware. With this mindset you don’t miss the eternal, the essential and for me that is what I want. Whether or not you choose to proceed in your operational definition of intentional, I present it as an option to consider. It really is far more than merely a ‘mind challenge’.
