When should you trust your heart in a difficult decision?
You keep thinking about an old friend. There was no great falling-out. You stopped seeing each other regularly, messages became less frequent, and eventually neither of you wrote. Now you want to get in touch, but you are unsure what to make of the wish.
Perhaps you miss them. Perhaps you miss being the person you were when you knew them. You may be lonely, curious, affectionate and afraid of an awkward reply at the same time. A strong feeling tells you that something matters; it takes more honesty to discover what that something is.
In Know what you want, Innocent connects following the heart to knowing oneself. That knowledge takes a lifetime, and it helps a person recognise the kind of life they want to live. The heart’s direction becomes more useful as you understand your own wishes more clearly.
A Spark from The Vision
Your heart is your compass in the journey of life; follow it.
Think about what you are hoping would happen. If the imagined meeting contains only old stories, you may be hoping to recover a time when life felt easier. Your friend cannot bring that whole life back. They have lived through the intervening years too.
But perhaps you also want to hear what those years have been like for them. You remember enjoying their dry humour and the way a disagreement could become an interesting conversation. You would like to know what occupies them now, even if it has little to do with your shared past. There is a present wish here: to make room for this person’s company again.
Nostalgia does not make that wish false. Nor does loneliness. You do not have to remove every other motive before taking affection seriously. The distinction matters because it changes what you would be asking of the meeting. Are you willing to encounter someone who has changed, or do you need them to make you feel exactly as you once did?
Give the wish its proper weight
Fear can sit beside a genuine wish without cancelling it. You might want renewed contact and dread discovering that the ease between you has gone. That uncertainty is real. It does not settle whether trying would express something you value.
Facts still matter. An ordinary lapse in contact is different from an explicit request to be left alone. A warm memory would not override that request. Nor does missing someone tell you that they miss you, or that the friendship would fit both your lives now.
Look honestly at what you could offer, too. Wanting a close friendship while having little time available may call for modest expectations. Existing commitments do not disappear because a feeling is strong. You can want to reconnect without promising the constant contact you cannot sustain.
What self-knowledge gives you is a clearer reason for the choice: you value this person’s company and would welcome knowing them as they are now. It cannot supply their answer. Trusting your heart means allowing that reason to matter in your decision, while leaving the meeting, and any friendship that follows, open to what both of you actually want.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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