Trust But Verify Your Gut

This is something I think I needed to hear maybe a little while ago and hopefully it will benefit someone else too: your gut reactions are not always the truest reflection of you. Your gut is very useful and very powerful, but it can be confounded, and just because you feel a strong tug in a direction it does not mean that is the be-all and end-all of your reaction, or that if you find yourself picking it apart later on and come to a different conclusion on reflection, that your initial reaction is “truer”, more “authentic” or somehow “what you really think”.

To extend this to the realm of action: doing the right thing is not always about wanting to or having the correct instinct in the first place. Some people always seem to be on the “right side”, to have moral clarity. It’s great to try and develop that, to hone your instincts. However, wanting to do something and not doing it because you think it is morally, ethically or otherwise the best thing to do: you still did the good thing. You will never be entirely free of the desire to do things that are “not good”, or not do things that are good. Some good things are easy, but many are hard. You will do them reluctantly or out of obligation or some other reason. But doing them is what matters.