25 Thought Provoking Questions For Better Conversation

Too often we exchange small talk without really engaging one another. Try the 25 questions below and see what happens. These questions have no correct or incorrect answers, only honest or dishonest one. You should push beyond a simple "yes" or "no". Probe and explain your responses. Look into heart, be honest and be brave and let your mind really play with the difficult choices you find.

Here are the 25 Thought Provoking Questions You Should Try:

Question 1: While walking in the park, you see a stranger and realize with absolute certainty that if you go over and introduce yourself, the two of you will fall in love more deeply than you even imagine possible. But you also know that in 6 months the person will be hit by a bus and killed. Would you go over to the person or leave? Assume you know that once you decide, you'll forget what lies ahead.

Thought Provoking Question 2: What is the most violent physical clash you've had with someone in recent years? Who came out ahead?

Question 3: If your mother and father told you that they never really loved or even liked you and you knew it was absolutely true, how would it affect your life? What if you simply overheard them saying this to someone else? 

Question 4: Would you like to be truly brilliant - more intelligent than 99.9 percent of the population? If so would it matter if being that smart would virtually eliminate your sense of humor about the things that amuse most people?

Question 5: Would you want to spend a week as someone of the opposite sex? someone very old? very beautiful? very ugly? or severely handicapped? If so, which one would most intrigue you?

Question 6: You're on an airplane talking pleasantly to a stranger of average appearance. Unexpectedly, the person offers you $ 30,000 for one night of sex. If you knew there were no danger and you'd get the money, would you do it? If the payment were meaningfully raised or lowered, at what point would you change your answer?

Thought Provoking Question Question 7: Amnesia comes in two forms: one in which you lose your memory of past events, another in which you no longer form new memories. If you took a bad fall and were to suffer one or the other, which would be worse?

Question 8: Do you think the world will be a better or worse place 100 years from now? Do you see our present world as a better place than the world of a century ago? How so?

Question 9: While on a trip, your spouse or lover spends a night with a stranger. If you knew that they'd never meet again and you would not otherwise find out about it, would you want your partner to tell you? If roles were reversed would you confess what you'd done?

Question 10: For an all expenses paid, one week vacation anywhere in the world, would you be billing to tear the wings off a beautiful butterfly? If so, would you be troubled enough to enjoy your trip any less? What about stepping on a cockroach?

Question 11: If you could have free, unlimited service fro 5 years from an extermely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?

Thought Provoking Question Question 12: If you knew that devoting yourself to an all consuming occupation-music, writing, acting, business, politics, or medicine-for 20 years would make you one of the best in the world at it, would you? If so, which would you choose?

Question 13: If you discovered that when you were conceived, you were one of five identical embryos and have four living identical twins, would you be more intrigued or distressed? Would you want to meet your siblings?

Question 14: Your house, containing everything you own, catches fier; after saving your family and pets, you have time for a final dash to save something of yours. What would it be?

Question 15: If you could work half as much as you do now and keep the same pay, or work jsut as hard as you do now and get twice the pay, which would you choose?

Question 16: While arguing with you on the phone, a close friend gets angry and hangs up. If he or she does not call back, would you call them? If so, how long would you wait?

Thought Provoking Question Question 17: You're raising money for a charity and someone agrees to make a large contribution if you perform alone in front of a thousand people at an upcoming fundraiser. Would you agree? If so, how big a donation, if any, would you require, and what sort of act would you perform?

Question 18: What would your funeral be like if you died tomorrow? Who would want to speak, and what would they say about you if they were being honest?

Question 19: If by sacrificing your life you could contribute so much to humanity that you'd be honored everywhere, would you? If so, what if you knew your sacrifice would go unrecognized, and the credit would go to someone you detested?

Question 20: If you had to spend the next 2 years in a small, fully provisioned Antarctic shelter with one other person, who would you want to be with?

Question 21: Which would be worse: having to leave the country and never return, or never being able to travel more than 150 miles from where you live now?

Question 22: While out one day, you come upon your mother holding hands with someone who is obviously her lover. She sees you and races over, begging you not to say anything to your father. What would you do?

Thought Provoking Question Question 23: Which would you prefer: a wild, turbulent life filled with joy, sorrow, passion, adventure, intoxicating success, and stunning setbacks; or a happy, secure, predictable life surrounded by friends and family, without wide swings of fortune and mood?

Question 24: Would you rather have success and everything material you want, but few friends, or little success or material well-being, but lots of friends.

Question 25: If you could give anyone a love potion that would so open their heart to you that they'd be hopelessly in love with you forever, would you? If so, who? Do you think the responsibility of their devotion might ever become a burden to you?