There are no rules in life. Yet there are some things that are innately in our best interest. It is those things that we must protect and nurture in order to maintain mental and emotional balance – In order to be true ourselves. These three areas will not lie to you, and if you listen, will lead you exactly where you are supposed to be:
1. Your Heart
It’s true, everything that you do flows from your heart. Guard it at all costs. To guard your heart includes being true to it, follow where it may lead. The heart is pure and its desires will never be contaminated. Those are the self-serving wants of ego, pride, and loneliness, which we have blamed on the heart. Here is where it starts. Go against your heart or allow it to be abused and all else will suffer. For every situation, relationship and endeavor – If your heart’s not in it, take yourself out of it.
2. Your Dreams
There’s a reason that you can’t stop thinking about “that thing.” It’s because you are meant to be doing whatever it is. If you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning thinking about writing, you are a writer. Same for singing, painting, being a doctor, lawyer or anything else that consumes your thoughts. Notice I said that you “are” that thing. You just may not be practicing at the moment. To go against your dreams is to go against who you are. Set free the person you’ve been suppressing!
3. Your Conscience
We may not all have the same moral compass, but in general there is a universal sense of what is right and wrong. Consider your conscience an internal policing of sorts. It tells you when something may break your personal laws. This is why cognitive dissonance exists. We must convince ourselves that we aren’t doing anything wrong, rather than accept that we possess or exercise undesirable characteristics. Our beliefs and actions cannot contradict. We know when our conscience is telling us something, and following it will save you a great deal of mental anguish.
If you think that any of the aforementioned faculties has ever led you astray, I’d bet that it’s likely a result of misidentification. Your heart would never tell you to go back to a miserable situation or person who mistreats you. That is something else entirely.
But what if they conflict? What if your heart says one thing and your conscience says another? Go with the one that is right – And if you are honest with yourself, you ALWAYS know which that is.