What if in the New Year you had to devote yourself to One Question?

Let’s up the stakes: If you do so, you are promised treasures and a fortune so great that you will have all the money you would ever need or want for the rest of your life. All you have to do is focus your work every day of 2016 this single Question.

What would it be?

Sure, it’s just a party game. No one will really offer you riches if you promise to winnow your focus to contemplation of a single question for 366 days (2016 is a leap year, we get one extra day to play with!).

On the other hand, maybe there are riches in store, riches of the emotional and spiritual variety that is, if you get the question right, and if you really can attune to it, and stick with it.

I’ve got one I could commit to: “What is my heart’s desire?”

Why this question? Because I trust that the heart knows.

The heart, one of my dear friends reminds me on one of my darkest days, is on a mission. So follow it.

What is my heart’s desire? Asking this question would ensure that I live each day guided by love.

Decades ago, when I was a college kid, first semester, first time in therapy, the therapist asked: “How do you feel about that?” Was it a trick question? I was a smart girl, graduated in the top 10 percent of my high school class. What was that question again? My mind drew a blank? What do I feel? Help me out here. My therapist had to list the choices. Start with these: Mad, sad, glad, scared. I eventually got the hang of feelings. I’m pretty good at those now.

Then I started listening to a guided relaxation recording, on which the soothing voice emanating from my iPod would ask me each time, “What is your heart’s deepest longing?” Stumped again. What are my choices?

How do I get to the heart of the matter?

My karate teacher once told me to “Choose love over fear.” I was to do this each time I needed to decide. This turned out to be a good way to guide the ship that was my life.

Now here I am–here we are–with the sandy shore of 2016 coming into view. As we approach this new year, our world is engulfed in fear, and we see where that is leading us. (Paris, San Bernadino, Ferguson…need I go on?)

For 2016, I’d like to see where love will lead me.

They say “The heart is a lonely hunter.” But it need not be so lonely if we scope out this territory—together.

366 days. One question. It’s on. Let’s see what we can dream up.

ZZzzZZzz

Today’s post is my response to the question posed by Jonathan Fields, founder of The Good Life Project: He put it like this: You wake up to discover a knock at your door. A wealthy uncle you barely knew has passed and left you a fortune. … but there is a condition. To be eligible to collect, you must commit your full-time working energies to the pursuit of an answer to a single question of your choosing for the next 12 months… What is your question? 

This prompt is part of my homework for #Quest2016’s inquiry, designed to help creative business artists move with intention into the New Year.