Questions.
From a young age, we were taught to ask questions when we wanted to get information in return. What is 2+2? How many bones make up the spine? Questions were foundational to learning. They were the key to knowing more. Even outside the classroom, questions were a means of satisfying curiosity and passing over life's little hurdles. What time are you going to the party? Where is the bus stop? I don't think there is such a thing as a day without questions, quite frankly. We ask and ask and ask and hopefully, we receive answers in return. It is our way of learning. It is our way of moving along in life.
But when was the last time we asked ourselves some questions? It seems counterintuitive, given the fact that we ask others questions when we ourselves don't have the solutions. Perhaps some questions don't have a single answer. Perhaps they don't need definitive answers and it is their open-ended nature that unlocks a greater truth. What if all the questions that were being asked of us all these years weren't the important questions that we should have been answering?
Last week I rummaged through a box of miscellaneous office materials and came across an old planner. At the bottom left corner of each page were questions. The few that I did choose to answer forced me to reevaluate certain decisions I've made in ways no question on a midterm exam ever had.
I've picked out my ten favorites:
1. Have you done anything lately worth remembering?
2. Do you ask enough question or do you settle for what you know?
3. What is the difference between living and existing? Are you living or are you existing?
4. Who do you love and what do you do about it?
5. What has fear stopped you from doing?
6. Other than money, what do you plan to gain from your job?
7. Beyond the titles that others have given you, who are you?
8. We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. Which are you focused on making, a living or a life?
9. What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life?
10. When all is said and done, will you have said more than you've done?
