Life is marked by optimism, opportunities, and potential. It’s an exciting time filled with possibility as we look forward. This is a decade of discovery and expectancy where hope and energy are high.

1. What kind of man or woman am I becoming?

2. How am I different from my mother or father?

3. Where can I find a few friends who will welcome me as I am and who will offer the family-like connections that I need (or never had)?

4. Can I love, and am I lovable?

5. What will I do with my life?

6. What do I really want in exchange for my life’s labors?

7. What parts of me need correction?

8. Around what person or conviction will I organize my life?

Spiritual life changes in our thirties. Our spiritual questions no longer center on the ideals of our youth but on the reality that life is tough and unforgiving. Thirty-somethings likely see things in themselves they thought they might have overcome by now simply by growing up.

1. How do I prioritize the demands being made on my life?

2. How far can I go in fulfilling my sense of purpose?

3. Where are the people I know I can walk through life with?

4. What does my spiritual life look like? Do I even have time for one?

5. Why am I not a better person?

The complexities of life further accelerate, and we begin to recognize we can no longer shrug off our flaws and failures as youthfulness and inexperience. We’re grownups now, expected to handle the bumps and bruises of life with unshakable courage. We are expected to be solid, yet if we listen carefully, we might hear the word trapped in the questions that now rise within us.

1. Who was I as a child, and what powers back then influenced the person I am today?

2. Why do some people seem to be doing better than I am?

3. Why am I often disappointed in myself and others?

4. Why are limitations beginning to outnumber options?

5. Why do I seem to face so many uncertainties?

6. What can I do to make a greater contribution to my generation? Or what would it take to pick up a whole new calling in life and do this thing I’ve always wanted to do?

We prefer not to think about it, but we have moved across life’s middle. Now we wonder how many years we have left. This is a decade of friends dying, marriages dissolving, and people moving to places of retirement. It can be sobering—even frightening—when we discover that younger people may know more than us.

1. Why is time moving so fast?

2. Why is my body becoming unreliable?

3. How do I deal with my failures and my successes?

4. How can my spouse and I reinvigorate our relationship now that our kids are gone?

5. Who are these young people who want to replace me?

6. What do I do with my doubts and fears?

7. Will I have enough money for my retirement years if I experience health problems and economic downturns?

1. When do I stop doing the things that have always defined me?

2. Why do I feel ignored by a large part of the younger population?

3. Why am I curious about who is listed in the obituary column of the papers, how they died, and what kinds of lives they led?

4. Do I have enough time to do all the things I’ve dreamed about in the past?

5. Who will be around me when I die?

6. If I’m married, which one of us will go first? What is it like to say goodbye to someone with whom you’ve shared so many years of life?

7. Are the things I believe in capable of taking me to the end?

8. Is there really life after death?

9. What do I regret?

10. What are the chief satisfactions of this many years of living?

11. What have I done that will outlive me?

The questions of these decades blend together and share similarities.

1. Does anyone realize or even care who I once was?

2. Is anyone aware that I once owned or managed a business, threw a mean curveball, possessed a beautiful solo voice, or had an attractive face?

3. Is my story important to anyone?

4. How much of my life can I still control?

5. Is there anything I can still contribute?

6. Why am I experiencing this anger and irritability?

7. Is God really there for me?

8. Am I ready to face death?

9. When I die, how will it happen? Will I be missed, or will the news of my death bring relief?

10. What is heaven like?