I don’t mean just wonder. I mean be radically curious. If you hear something that sounds weird or unbelievable or even makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, don’t just shrug it off. Look it up.

Information overload is a reality of our times. We have access to pretty much anything we want at the touch of a button. It’s hard to figure out the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the fake from the true. But we each have something that computers will never have. We have that strange feeling in the pit of our stomachs that travels faster than the speed of light to our brains. Ding! The words aren’t even formed and we know instinctively that something is not right.

The challenge is to listen to that stomach flutter. Don’t ignore it. Don’t pretend it’s hunger or that you’re wrong because everyone else is saying it’s right.

As part of his commencement speech at Harvard last spring, Dean James Ryan spelled out the 5 questions we need to ask ourselves as we move through life.

1.) Wait, what?
2.) I wonder, why/if?
3.) Couldn’t we at least?
4.) How can I help?
5.) What really matters?

Benefit from a Harvard education with that speech.

His new book, ’Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions’ is now available.