When a relationship breaks up, the person initiating the separation may say, ‘it isn’t you, it’s me’. Is this credible? Who thinks that they are the one at fault? If you get in a dispute and tell your friends about it, are they likely to side with you? The probably are, since they are already biased in your favor since they are your friends, and they are only hearing your side of the story. The law of probability would suggest that you are occasionally at fault, but fear and insecurity prevent people from recognizing this. Are you secure enough to realize when the problem is you?

Are you a saint? In some faith traditions this term applies to all believers. In others this is a recognized honor bestowed on a select few. It is possible that one is being too inclusive and the other is being too exclusive. The term implies that someone is living a life that manifests Christian principles, and some do this without being recognized for it, but it is not something that happens automatically for every believer. This is not an office in the usual sense of a designated authority in a church hierarchy, but they serve as living examples of Christlike behavior.

Do you watch the news? Have you ever been away or out of your normal routine so that you had to get caught up when you returned? Did you find that you had missed very much, or not very much? When you do watch the news, how much of it is repetitive, shallow, superficial, sensational, and transitory? How much of it is directly applicable to your life, let alone deep and profound and permanently enduring? On this basis would you benefit by more exposure to the news, or less? If anything important happens you will find out. Would you benefit with fewer distractions and fleeting images?

Do you take the Bible literally? Does this work in every case? I told my followers that unless they ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Son of Man they would have no life in themselves. Later I told them that this was my body broken for you. Do you take these passages literally? If not, then are you able to affirm the reality and substance of symbolic language? If so, you can find greater depth there than in the literal meaning, which is normally the narrowest and least insightful approach?