A question we often ask ourselves when faced with an emotional dilemma is, “should we follow our head or our heart?”
The wise declare that our actions must be sourced in compassion but we should not lose our head. In dealings with people, we must always follow our heart. In dealings with the world, we must follow our head but let the heart lead our major decisions. How can one have the heart rule a decision and the head make it? It’s not very difficult to decide the larger direction that our life should take. Moving in the direction guided by our heart, we can make most of our decisions based on rational logic.
For example, you feel that you must help a sincere young person set up a business. You like the enthusiasm in that person and yet, you aren’t sure whether they can do an effective job. This person may be full of good intentions. However, they may not have a practical plan. So, although you wish to help, you’ll need to make some hard decisions. You could follow your heart and invest in the project, but only after you’re sure that they are sincere and will be able to do a good job, using your investment. Wishing to help this person is a decision made with the heart, but ensuring effective planning and execution needs you to use the head.
Some people decide whether someone deserves their help or not based only on their cold logic. They do not use their heart to decide any of the important things in their lives. They are constantly calculating everything. They make the most important decisions of their lives after assessing material profits and losses. Such people are never happy.
To be happy, you need both the head and the heart in synergy. Suppose you plan to go for a holiday with your loved ones, you will want to make everyone comfortable, and to have fun together.
This decision is made by both your head and your heart. Going on a holiday needs a lot of planning. You will check out the places which are favourable to what you want to do on the holiday. You will compare the prices of air tickets, the hotel rooms, etc. The primary decision to go on the holiday is made by your heart. Emotion is more important than logic when you think about going on a holiday. Planning comes later. The emotion and your heart create the paradigm within which you start planning stuff with your head using your logic.
The wise ones declare that our greatest life decisions must be made with our hearts. But, one should never lose one’s head when putting plans into action.
In the Bible, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”
In this vast space within your heart, you can have many compartments where logic, or your head, rules your momentary decisions. Your long term plans and decisions however, must come from a balance between the head and the heart. More importantly, these plans must be within a larger paradigm. The paradigm of your heart.
There are some people who constantly make decisions, plans and lists. They are calculating long-term profits of everything all the time. Often, when these people make short-term decisions, especially in arguments, they are looking at quick emotional gains. They want to win in everything they do. These people are rarely happy. They are never in the present moment.
This is just the opposite of what is recommended by the wise. The moment we begin using emotions and the heart to make quick and short-term decisions, and use logic and the head to make long term decisions, we are bound to become unhappy.
How we live our lives depends entirely on the direction we take at the important crossroads of our lives. These directions must be chosen primarily by the heart if we want to be truly happy. When in doubt follow your heart. See how your life unfolds. It will be a totally different kind of living. There will be a sense of adventure and freedom. A thrilling eagerness to explore the miracle of being alive. You will begin to base your short-term decisions on logic but will let your heart lead you in your life’s larger vision.
Deepam Chatterjee is the author of The Millennial Yogi. He can be contacted on deepamchatterjee@yahoo.co.in