WATCH: Dean James Ryan's 5 Essential Questions In Life

Life has it's ups and downs, it ebbs and flows, we experience highs and lows. 

But if we can hold onto what's most important to us through it all, we just might feel like it was all worth it in the end. I thought about this as I listened to James Ryan's essential questions because if we can hold onto these questions - ask them and continually come back to them - our lives just might feel fulfilled. See what you think, here is the excerpt from Dean James Ryan's speech at the 2016 Harvard Graduate School of Education Presentation of Diplomas and Certificates where he shares his 5 essential questions in life.

5 Essential Questions In Life:

1. Wait, what?

2. I wonder...?

3. Couldn't we at least...?

4. How can I help? 

5. What really matters?

And did you get what 

you wanted from this life, even so?

And here's the Raymond Carver poem he references:

Late Fragment

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

I'm good at asking myself what really matters: spending time with my family and friends, living healthy, encouraging others to believe in their dreams, reading, writing and having fun. Pretty much in that order...but not always.

Even though I know what really matters to me, I have to purposely make time in my life and find balance (as much as I can) amongst it all. But it's not easy!

Life is short. I believe in making the most of it so I definitely connect with these questions and hope to keep them close and come back to them often. I might need a poster of them...

Watch and decide for yourself if these questions seem as essential to you as he claims them to be. Take a few minutes to write down your answers to each of them and even write down your thoughts about the questions themselves. Then stop and reread what you have written. How does it feel? Then reassess, do these questions seem as essential to you as he claims them to be? Do they resonate with you or do you have variations to suggest? 

I would love to hear your thoughts...

and your answers to my questions:

What really matters to you?

How can I help you when it comes to what really matters to you?