According to Vanity Fair, the Proust Questionnaire was originally made as a parlor game popularized, but not made by, Marcel Proust, a French essayist and novelist. Proust believed that in answering 35 questions, the true nature and values of a person are unveiled.
In this edition of the Proust Questionnaire, staff reporter Evelyn Jenkins sat down with ISS monitor Deborah Gardner and picked her brain on the questionnaire.
The Shield: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Gardner: Perfect happiness, very seldomly, comes for anyone. With things that have happened, you can’t redo them. Thinking positively is what I would say is perfect happiness. I don’t really think perfect happiness exists all of your life or all of the time, but if you could make happiness 80 or 90 percent of your life, that would be perfect happiness.
TS: Which living person do you most admire?
Gardner: My bridge partner, because she is a person who always seems to be happy. Very few times is she a negative thinker and that’s the way I wanna be. She’s had a full life and is still happy at the age of 90.
TS: What is your current state of mind?
Gardner: My current state of mind is that I have fulfilled the majority of things that I have wanted to do in life, and at my age, I still enjoy doing things, and that is helping younger people. That’s one of the reasons I continue to work here at McCallum because I hope that I have an influence on some child’s life. That I would make it better for them in their future.
TS: Which living person do you most despise?
Gardner: I really try not to hate people, but I hate some of their ways.
TS: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Gardner: Never assume things about people that you know and don’t know unless you really have facts. Don’t assume. I’ve got to stop that, because nine times out of 10, it’s not the way I thought it was or it didn’t happen the way I believed.
TS: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Gardner: I use the phrase, “I promise you I will do that” a lot. Whatever I say I’m going to do, that’s my reaction: “I promise.” I also use the quote a lot: “That’s my story and I’m going to stick to it.”
TS: What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Gardner: Parenting. Raising my children and being the mother I was to them and the wife I was to my husband.
TS: What is your most treasured possession?
Gardner: The last gift that was given to me just before my husband passed, from him to me: a diamond pendant.
TS: Who are your heroes in real life?
Gardner: My older sister. She taught me to be more of a positive thinker rather than a negative thinker about myself. She taught me to find the best in other people rather than always criticizing [them].
TS: What is it that you most dislike?
Gardner: Dishonest people. I hate people that will not tell the truth, when to tell the truth is so much better.
TS: What is your greatest regret?
Gardner: That I didn’t pursue my greatest gift to the fullest, and that would be [being] a caterer. I did it small, but I wish I could have gone on and pursued that kind of business for myself. I think I would have been good at it.
TS: What is your motto?
Gardner: Always do your best no matter what the outcome is.
