Question 14: Final Thoughts

Published September 15, 2026

Question 1: What do you want for your life? 

“To be joyful and add joy to the world.” Female, 45

“I want to have a fulfilling career in music and to have a community of friends and family who I love.” Nonbinary, 21

“I want to create art, and a safe space to raise my children and to nurture my marriage. I want to glorify God in everything I do, and humble myself when I don’t. I want financial freedom, to have the time and energy to be present with my family.” Female, 30

“I want to spend the rest of my days with the love of my life. We want to get married, and have God's blessing, for many years of health, peace, prosperity, and much love for each other.” Female, 64

“As someone who’s still figuring this out- ultimately whatever I end up doing or where life leads me I want to live a joyful existence.” Female, 27

“I want to be able to live a life that makes God proud and to be surrounded by love and family.” Female, 21

“To make the world a little better than when I arrived and to be a good husband and father.” Male, 42

“I want to surround myself with people I love and do things I love. I really want to spend time on my hobbies. I neglected a lot of time in my hobbies in the past due to focusing so much on school. Now that I’ve graduated I’d love to get back into art. Improve my skills. And try out astrophotography. Doing things I love, and having people in my life who I love, is all I could ask for.” Female, 24

“To live each day purposefully in the best way I can. My journey started off a little rocky, and I experienced many hard lessons. I have concluded that living a truthful and authentic life brings peace, and sets an example for my family. I am far from perfect but strive to take that path.” Female, 78

“Serenity, acceptance, wisdom, beauty, joy.” Female, 60

“To love and be loved.” Female, 64

“In life I want to stay true to myself - to not base my decisions upon what others around me are doing. To do what feels right to me and works out An example of this is that I have never had a desire to have children, something I feel very strong about. And as much as I love many Disney films, I don’t want to fall into the idea of needing to find “prince charming” and live “happily ever after together” which is how I thought it should work. In life I also want to find moments for laughter and silliness, in a way, never “growing up” as Peter Pan always said. Finding moments like these even when times are difficult. Always relying upon happy memories that will bring a smile. This is why I cherish scrapbooking so much, to always be able to hold onto such moments. I don’t want life to be too serious, but light-hearted and fun as much as possible (although knowing that times can be hard… to be realistic, after all!). I don’t want to overthink things too much. I also want to be more open to change and new adventure. Stepping out of my comfort zone, especially as someone who has social anxiety. Build new connections, even if just fond acquaintances. Also understand that some relationships can come and go. I want to not think too hard over the future/pressure myself to figure out my “path.” I want to let things come as they do to some extent, and be surprised along the way. To keep learning things about myself and who I am, which I am still discovering. To continue trying to improve my lifestyle choices as far as food choices, learning new things all the time about nutrition. To be much more knowledge about these topics.” Female, 27

Question 2: Do you have any other advice you would like to give?

“Love truly is the most beautiful feeling in the world, and more so if you are loved back. It is painful and challenging but if you have good communication with each other the flame will keep on burning.” Female, 64

“Learn to Love yourself. Loving yourself doesn’t always have to mean feeling 100% happy with everything about yourself, but take a moment to reflect on the things you do like, work on the things you don’t like, and even as you’re working on them, accept that they are part of what makes you, you! I don’t like every single thing about myself but I recognize that I am a unique and amazing person who is worthy of love, both from myself, from God, and from others.” Nonbinary, 21

“Never judge. We don't know how hard some people have it in life.” Female, 21

“Hope can be hard, but its worth it.” Male, 42

“Give with no expectations.” Female, 45

“Listen to your gut, stay true to yourself, and remember we are all doing the best we can in the situations we find ourselves in. And as Gandhi says ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’” Female, 27

“Understand that things don’t always go “according to plan” - things can feel so rushed in life but it’s OK to step away and reflect. I did that when I was going to start at a university in a degree I picked out of the spur of the moment. I attended about two days of classes and decided it wasn’t for me, and soon after decided on another university. Listen to yourself if something doesn’t feel right. Write down your thoughts or speak them out loud - this can help.” Female, 27

“I think it’s important to remember that we all need advice sometimes. No one has everything figured out. We can all be lost sometimes. We’re all at different stages in our lives. Life is pretty confusing, but it also has its amazing moments. Just need to take life one step at a time and enjoy the journey.” Female, 24

“Don’t let others opinions of you cloud what God says about you. His opinion is more important.” Female 30

Question 3: Do you have any concluding thoughts you would like to share about participating in this project this summer? 

“I am impressed by the scope of your questions. This was a very enjoyable experience. Thank you, Rachel.” Female, 78

“I loved the experience of being a participant in this amazing project. I am a bit sad it is over.” Female, 64

“I was working during most of the Thursdays and having some time to deeply think really brightened my work day :)” Nonbinary, 21

“This was a really good way of helping me reflect on my life, while putting forth anonymous opinions :)” Female, 21

“Really neat idea, Rachel! Thanks for the invitation to participate. I think responding to these questions is a great way to connect with ourselves and think of big themes in our lives.” Female, 27

“This has been fun the last few weeks! All of the questions were interesting and really got me thinking about topics I haven’t really thought deeply about before. Really looking forward to reading everyone else’s response. Thanks Rachel for putting this together!” Female, 24

“I hope my answers give hope and provoke thoughts and conversations.” Female, 30

“Thank you for letting me be a part of this. I really enjoyed answering these questions.” Female, 27