When the Heart Knows Before the Head

During dinner tonight, my senior asked me a question about his future.

He's planning to apply for an exchange program after his military service and was torn between two countries. As an international student myself, this wasn't the first time someone had come to me for this kind of advice. I was thinking about how to compare the options for him.

But first, there was something I needed to know.

"If you put everything else aside," I asked him, "which place is your heart actually drawn to?"

His answer came without hesitation.

"Going to the UK would be easier since I have a senior there, but honestly? I want to go to Australia."

His heart was pointing toward Australia. And that made the answer obvious.

Sure, the UK might have been the safer choice, but his heart and his head were pulling in different directions. So I told him straight up: go to Australia.

He agreed with me, but I could still see the doubt lingering in his expression. Which made sense—he probably wasn't asking because he didn't know the answer. He was asking because he wasn't sure he could trust it.

Most people already know what they want. They're just looking for the confidence to go after it. They're seeking something—anything—that will give them that final push.

So, I shared two things with him.

The first was something I'd written about before: how we think about choices.

"Instead of agonizing over making the 'right' decision, it's better to follow your heart and then make that decision the right one."

When you're weighing final options, both paths usually have something valuable to offer. So why torture yourself? Pick the one that excites you. If you don't follow your heart, you'll always wonder "what if."

The second was a dialogue from a movie I'd watched recently.

"There's this incredible opportunity, but should I take it?"
"How much are they paying you?"
"Money's not the issue."
"Then what's the matter?"

I brought up that conversation from early in F1: The Movie—when Ruben gives Hayes the plane ticket and Hayes is talking to the diner owner. My senior remembered the scene and followed along as I explained.

And that moment is the heart of the entire movie.

Through that simple exchange, Hayes discovered what racing really meant to him. He let go of that vague fear he'd been carrying around—the kind of fear we all naturally have when facing the unknown, even when we can't quite put our finger on why.

Without that conversation, he never would have gotten back behind the wheel.

So I asked my senior the same question: "Then what's the problem?"

He went quiet for a moment. But his expression said everything. I could tell he'd made his decision.

Life is a series of choices. And so many of those choices involve a tension between what makes logical sense and where our hearts want to go.

I always choose to follow my heart.

My own plan to head to Dubai and then the States after my service? Honestly, no matter how I dress it up with good reasons, it mostly comes down to the fact that's where my heart is pulling me.

But here's the thing: right and wrong, good and bad—those are things I create. If there's a choice that makes my heart race just thinking about it, then that's where I need to go. I'll figure out how to make it work once I'm there.

Of course, following your heart often means stepping into the unknown. Sometimes it means facing truths you've been avoiding. It brings fear, unfamiliarity, awkwardness, discomfort—all of it. Getting through those feelings takes real courage.

But when you close your eyes and leap into that space, something magical can happen.

When you follow your heart into a new chapter, that adventure becomes something extraordinary.