Is 'Follow Your Heart' Overrated?

You'll notice this on TV 99/100 times - the best advice is "Follow your heart". When you've to decide between your heart and brain - always follow your heart. Now, an engineer that I am, I've wondered whether my 'heart' is really capable of making any decisions. Of course not, it's the 'brain' that decides everything. So, what's the difference between 'following your heart' and 'following your brain'? I wrote a blog post about it and one of the commenters said, "Heart tells you what you want to do, even if your brain tells you you shouldn't do it". People told me that I 'followed my hart' when I 'quit my job to become an entrepreneur'. Give me a break!

To tell you the truth - my heart tells me to jump from the top of building and fly like a bird. But my brain tells me that's 'wrong'. Now, should I follow my heart or brain? Come on! Follow your brain! NOT HEART!

Your comments?

Replies

  • Anoop Mathew
    Anoop Mathew
    The_Big_K
    To tell you the truth - my heart tells me to jump from the top of building and fly like a bird. But my brain tells me that's 'wrong'. Now, should I follow my heart or brain? Come on! Follow your brain! NOT HEART!
    Hello?? Biggie??? Are you serious??? If so, which building??? Do jump from the Al-Kalifa tower in Dubai and create a World Record for CE. (Ok, i was just kidding ๐Ÿ˜›)

    Just answer these questions for me will you, then i'll tell you what to follow: Your brain or Your heart:
    1. Most people hate their jobs?? (Why?? Do they work with their hearts which tells them to hate???)
    2. Most people are serious about life that they start earning, saving, and spend less, all in a desire to 'store' for the future? (What future are we talking about anyways?)
    3. Where on earth do you see 'H-A-P-P-I-N-E-S-S'? (When all people do on a daily basis is drink, dream and do wrong and ultimately die!!)
    4. Why do people lack a 'PURPOSE' in their lives? (I'm talking about the majority of the population)
  • silverscorpion
    silverscorpion
    It's just a coincidence that many emotions like happiness, love, sadness etc. are associated with heart and not brain. Of course, it's the brain which does all the thinking and also experience all the emotions, but somehow, we have come to associate certain emotions with certain organs other than the brain. For ex., we say "I am happy to my heart's content" and not "I am happy to my brain's content".

    The physical experience of any emotion is due to chemicals released in the brain. The heart, the largest of our involuntary muscles, responds to this chemical release in very noticeable ways (beats faster, harder, slower, softer). We 'feel' these changes and, logically, associate them to how we 'feel'. Similar to this is 'butterflies in the stomach'. The same is not felt in voluntary muscles like our biceps or our thigh muscles.. Be thankful, for then we would be telling "Follow your biceps", haha.. ๐Ÿ˜€

    So, in effect, when people say follow your heart, what is meant is, do what you like. There are 2 things - one is what we do to sustain ourselves, to earn and make a living. The other is what we like to do, what we would do if we have our way. So, follow your heart means, go with the latter if you are in a dilemma whether to go for a good living or doing what you like. Again, it's what your brain likes and not your heart likes!! ๐Ÿ˜€
  • Pensu
    Pensu
    Thats a nice topic, i have always thought about this, and seriously speaking its been 21 years and my heart hasnt said anything...๐Ÿ˜› I mean whatever decision i made, whatever steps i took they were all rationalized. I never felt like i was having a contradiction or like ur brain is wrong and ur heart is correct. And as SS said if u r going to follow your heat y dont give a chance to ur biceps, palms, foot and every other organ in ur body. I think decision making should be left to brain only.
    As far as love, sadness are concerned, okay they produce some chemicals, makes ur heart beat faster or slower but in the end its brain who is processing them. So basically stop following the heart coz its not saying anything, its was always ur brain....๐Ÿ˜€
    We have a lot of examples saying people had vision, they followed their heart, they were happy, got success.....blah blah blah. I have read thousand of stories like this and i can bet all of their steps were rationalized. Either they were motivated by curiosity or hunger of success. It not like Bill Gates's heart asked him to start Microsoft. He wanted to get success and he knew the path, make softwares, decision took by brain ergo success....๐Ÿ˜€
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    Let's get down to simpler points. My heart tells me to each one full medium sized Pizza (because I like it); but my brain tells me that it's not good for my health. Should I follow my heart? Or should I eat just a part of it to keep both my heart and brain happy?

    Come on! 'Follow your heart is just over rated!'.
  • Anoop Mathew
    Anoop Mathew
    The_Big_K
    Let's get down to simpler points. My heart tells me to each one full medium sized Pizza (because I like it); but my brain tells me that it's not good for my health. Should I follow my heart? Or should I eat just a part of it to keep both my heart and brain happy?

    Come on! 'Follow your heart is just over rated!'.
    Does you brain seriously 'speak' in front of pizza? Mine goes numb! ๐Ÿ˜• I'd just listen to my heart, or in this case my tongue that causes all the saliva to run down my chin.๐Ÿ˜›

    Anyways, you may be right, follow your heart is a bit over-rated in some cases (such as food). But what about my question? What do you have to say about it?
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    anoopthefriend
    Does you brain seriously 'speak' in front of pizza? Mine goes numb! ๐Ÿ˜• I'd just listen to my heart, or in this case my tongue that causes all the saliva to run down my chin.๐Ÿ˜›

    Anyways, you may be right, follow your heart is a bit over-rated in some cases (such as food). But what about my question? What do you have to say about it?
    My brain directs my hands to remain folded and not eat Pizza because it's going to ruin all my week's workout.
  • Mr.Don
    Mr.Don
    2:01 15 sec

    Pizza in front of me. My heart says I love pizza go ahead and eat it and my brain says no you should not because its not healthy. In this case, I follow my heart. Whatever I am going to eat the pizza.

    2:01 30 sec

    A lizard falls on my pizza.. A big scream.

    2:01 45 sec

    My heart says 'Oops' ๐Ÿ˜” . My brain says Come on I told you. Now go ahead and eat the Pizza.

    You leaving the place, leaving the pizza. ๐Ÿ˜€

    Ultimately brain compromises with heart with a simple suggestion and we will do the best what is required. So Heart follows suggestions from brain and brain follows heart and we follow both. So it's good we are having both. So in my opinion not over rated.
  • Anoop Mathew
    Anoop Mathew
    Is heart still worth listening to, even when the end of the world is near (or as some believe it to be near)?

    P.S.: Would you listen to your heart or to your mind?
  • Ankita Katdare
    Ankita Katdare
    There is an eternal battle between the heart and the mind. Those who are able to keep a control over both. My father quoted a wonderful line to me when I was a small kid that has stuck with me ever since.

    There should be a strong ice of thoughts in the brain and a fire of emotions in the heart. Never let the fire melt the ice and never let the ice put off the fire. ๐Ÿ˜€

    ^ And I know very well that it is easier said than done.
  • Jeffrey Arulraj
    Jeffrey Arulraj
    I would always say to go with your Heart cos If you blindly follow your mind you will one day turn more of a psychopath as days go by.

    And you will start to live for your own greed and delight instead of living a sociable life with your Society

    Your mind will force you to portray that which you are not

    PS : These are long time events which are much reliable to occur If I post on December 22 2012
  • Abhishek Rawal
    Abhishek Rawal
    Talib Kweli taught me, you must know when to be arrogant, when to be humble.You should know when to follow the heart & when to follow your thoughts.
    You outta learn what to be & when to be, that's what clever dawgs do & that's what streets has taught me.
  • Ramani Aswath
    Ramani Aswath
    Heart vs. Brain. Essentially Emotion vs. Reason.
    My vote is for reason. Even when emotion tells me to do something and I do it, it is preceded by a reasoning, accepting that the action is perhaps not the best, yet for overall suitability allowed, always concious that there is a price to pay and accepting the terms.

    anoopthefriend
    Is heart still worth listening to, even when the end of the world is near (or as some believe it to be near)?
    My own end is nearer than the end of the world. I lean towards reason even more now than to emotion.
  • Mr.Don
    Mr.Don
    AbraKaDabra
    There is an eternal battle between the heart and the mind. Those who are able to keep a control over both. My father quoted a wonderful line to me when I was a small kid that has stuck with me ever since.

    There should be a strong ice of thoughts in the brain and a fire of emotions in the heart. Never let the fire melt the ice and never let the ice put off the fire. ๐Ÿ˜€

    ^ And I know very well that it is easier said than done.
    Well, a post & a like after a long time, totally heart-full - The quote registered some memory in my mind. I guess something must be connected to something, always like -> CE-ans as in CE. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Hence, not over-rated.

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

ASME GIKI Chapter(Pakistan) is organizing International Mechanical Engineering Convention inApril 2012. IMEC 2012 includes modules that have been designed to give you thetrue essence of Mechanical Engineering. It is going...
In the development of a new, universal engine for the forums. In this topic I'll leave the information on the progress of development.
Hello, I'm an EE student and study in 3rd year. I'd receive an assignment about "Reverse Power Relay". My objective is to create a device which can detect a Watt...
hi, this is chandru. want to share and learn more electrical knowledge. thank you.
Hey Guys, I'm sort of new here and this is my first post/thread. I want to introduce myself first: My name is Ajit Krisshna, and I'm a 3rd year engineering...