{don't} listen to your heart

no, this is not one of those I hate love, romance sucks, grab a pint of ice cream, cynical posts. nor is this a bash on romantic comedies, love songs, or love stories. **I actually am a pretty big fan of the one being written in my life currently** this is more of a "let's stop and think about what we are really saying here." as I write this I am reminded of the children's song my siblings & I listened to as we grew up "oh, be careful little ears what you hear..." and the truth in it that should be true for all ages. there is a popular phrase our culture screams today, "listen to your heart"... and it's usually followed by some cheesy line like "and you'll never go wrong." well, let's examine that statement for a second before we blindly agree... **excuse the logical reasoning that has annoyingly taken over my brain. thanks, law school** 

what happens when people listen to their hearts? like what if my heart is telling me I need to make-out with some random guy, who isn't Michael? what if my heart is telling me to explode at the kid next to me who rudely interrupts me with his slurping? what if my heart is telling me that I should only eat dark chocolate & coffee? what if my heart is telling me to not study until later... and later it tells me the same thing? what if my heart tells me to be sassy to all people because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed? what if my heart tells me not to invite certain people because I just don't feel like including them? I think we can all agree that if I listened to my heart in those circumstances, people would hate me. many of those same people telling me to "listen to [my] heart" would tell me those things are illogical and would cause more harm than good. my point is not that feelings don't matter, and we should never listen to them... it's that we have to have some kind of filter to run those feelings through to see if they are reliable. and what if they aren't? I would like to argue that more often than not, we should be singing "don't listen to your heart when it's telling you lies" **you have to read that to "listen to your heart, when it's calling for you..." in order to get that one**

so here's to embracing the fact that sometimes our hearts lie to us & rewriting the message of today's culture.