In this game called life, which team captain do you choose to follow? Which part of yourself do you let take the reins of your fragile and vulnerable chariot? Which aspect of your being do you succumb to and allow to steer you towards the endless possibilities of paths that all open up and branch off into diverging directions?
For many people, their heads are the natural leaders of their fates. This rational and logical aspect of yourself looks at all of the facts and judges any given situation from an analytical distance. This intellectual part nudges its horn-rimmed glasses sliding down its aquiline nose, rolls up the sleeves of its paisley shirt, ruffles its mousy-colored hair in a nervous yet pensive manner and declares, "Ok, let's look at this." All of the details are set out, laid bare and examined thoroughly. "This is how it is and you should do such and such because of this reason," you might hear your mind proudly whispering to you after it has gone through its thought process. It will then rub its hands together briskly as though the matter has been settled and retreat until the next dilemma arises.
However, your heart, like the drama queen it proudly is, arrives on the scene and immediately scatters all of the neatly piled flow charts, diagrams, graphs and dissertations your mind has convincingly and painstakingly put together to form its argument. Your flaky heart looks at all the supposed physical evidence against it and sneers menacingly, thinking rudely out loud that all of this bullshit logic does not make the slightest sense.
"What about how you feeeellllll," it haltingly and pleadingly whimpers, making you instantly feel the gambit of emotions it magically unleashes into your system like a poison. A mixture of happiness, elation, excitement, nervousness, sadness, anger and countless other cousins of this treacherous and mischievous trickster inhabiting your chest parade around displaying their pret-a-porter collection suited for this particular occasion. Your long, shaggy haired and disheveled heart stands back and crosses its arms petulantly, pouting and looking down at the ground because you are taking, for the moment, your head's side.
Your heart is like a child playing on a teeter-totter - one minute you are completely over the moon and the next you are left wondering what the hell it is that you are doing exactly. Sometimes though, your heart has a rare but lucid moment when it is completely convinced of how it is making you feel and you would subsequently put your hand in fire, so sure you are of you and your heart's shared emotions. During such moments of truth, when your heart is not under the influence of any emotional narcotic or stimulant, you know what it is you want and need and your heart does its victory dance as though it has scored a touch down.
On the other hand, because your heart is so fickle, unstable and yet so loyal to the passions and emotions it harbors, your mind at this point interjects and tells you to consider the rationality of it all.
But are you really listening to that stiff and stern voice of reasoning at this point when your heart has spoken?
And, if this battle wasn't complicated enough, there is a third player that enters into the arena and muddles up any of the moves you were considering. The butterflies, the nausea not connected to indigestion, that sinking in the pit of your stomach, those pins and needles, these are all the work of your primordial physical aspect, namely your body. It is the keeper of those pesky butterflies it decides to let loose out of their jewel-encrusted and golden enclosure to pester your stomach at the most inopportune instances. It is the one who drops the anvil in the middle of your belly right before you go into an exam that you have not studied for. Your body is the one who lets you know something is wrong that you are not seeing by making your chest muscles constrict around your galloping heart as though to protect it by getting closer. Those sweaty palms, that heat rising from your toes, those tingles and waves of desire, the quivering, trembling and shivering that has nothing to do with the temperature of the room your are in, the millions of delicious goosebumps - also all the incredible prowess of your physical shell that is more often than not taken for granted. Your body is not controlled by your mind or your heart and reveals things neither other aspect of yourself knows or can even fathom.
So, what do you listen to in the end? Is there ever a magical moment when all three coincide and you are able to make the best decision, or does it have to be a constant choice between the three? Perhaps the only way to follow your path is to listen to all three and make a judgment based on what feels the most right and to not regret, no matter what, the choices you make or the paths you follow. If everything can be viewed as being a learning experience, then no decision, whether taken with the help of your head, heart or body, can ever be seen as being inherently wrong.
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