Table Topics is an impromptu speaking section in a Toastmasters club meeting. Members (and perhaps guests) are asked a question and then answer it via a one-to-two minute off-the-cuff speech.
I have been skimming through a 198-page book from 2024 by Jennifer McGaha titled The Joy Document: Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight. There is a Google Books preview ending on page 13. At the end, on pages 195 and 196, there is a section titled Guiding Questions: Creating Your Own Joy Document. These are writing prompts or Table Topics questions. The second paragraph begins:
"….Finding joy is a lot like that – a waiting game. A watching game. A smidgeon-of-this-and-a-sprinkling-of-that game. Still, you have to start somewhere, so below are some questions designed to help you begin your own Joy Document. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of questions to consider, but perhaps these can serve as starting points. And who knows? You may begin with something small, a song you love, a saying you find intriguing, an awkward interaction with a man on a trail or at a produce stand or along a canal, and one joyful moment will inspire another and another until you have a whole Joy Dissertation, a Joy Treatise, a Joy Manifesto, a Joy Declaration.
Feast for a moment on that.
1] What song(s) do you associate with pivotal times in your life, and why?
2] Think about a favorite family recipe. Whom do you associate with the recipe? What events? What feelings? When do you make this food? Have you changed the recipe at all from the original? Why or why not?
3] When in your life has a surprise risen to the level of a surprisement?
4] Consider a time when an encounter with someone else caused you to think more deeply about a social/cultural/political issue that matters to you.
5] Discuss a strange/awkward/unexpected interaction with a stranger that led you to consider something in a new way.
6] In what way have your beliefs served as a source of joy/comfort for you?
7] Point to a moment when something you once deeply believed changed irrevocably.
8] How have your interactions with animals and/or the natural world shaped what you believe?
9] Discuss a time when you learned something you didn’t know you needed to learn.
10] Discuss a time when you said literally or in spirit) ‘fuck it’ to something, when you let go of something that was interfering with your happiness.
11] Discuss a time when you took a chance you’re now glad you took.
12] What are some stories you have told yourself about your life that might not be fully true? How might revising those stories change you?
13] If you considered your body a sacred space, how might that change how you move in the world?
14] What big questions seem most pressing to you in this season of your life? What is it you most want to know?
15] In what way might wondering (the verb – i.e., wanting to know something) lead to wonder (the noun – i.e., a sense of awe)?"
If you are wondering what a surprisement is (Question 3), that is explained in the first paragraph of the 21st essay, Suprisement, beginning on page 77:
“One evening, READING a student essay, I came across the phrase ‘much to my surprisement,’ which naturally surprised me, what with grammar-check and spell-check and all, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to appreciate the writer’s intent. After all, surprise is akin to amaze and astonish and bewilder and excite and wonder, all which could be amended with ‘ment’ to indicate not just a transitory sensation or static thing but a whole state of being. Why should surprise be any different? The more I considered it, the more sense it made, and the more sense it made, the more shortsighted my blue-inked circle around the word appeared.”
The cartoon was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.
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