Most of the worst decisions of my life were the logical ones.
Every time I went with the spreadsheet over the gut, I paid for it. Every time I followed the voice that did not have a reason, things turned out fine. I used to think this was luck. After 27 years and a long study of the Bhagwad Gita, I no longer think it is.
The Bhagwad Gita has a strange instruction for anyone making a hard decision. Listen to your heart, because that is where Krishna sits.
Three verses say this directly. In 15.15, He says He is seated in the hearts of all beings, and from Him come memory, knowledge, and the forgetting of both. In 18.61, He says the Lord dwells in the heart of every being and turns each of us around as if we were mounted on a machine. In 13.18, He says the supreme is the light of all lights, beyond darkness, and is situated in the hearts of all.
Three different chapters say the same thing. The voice that knows is already inside you, and the work is to listen for it.
The hard part is recognizing it. The mind has many voices and they all sound urgent. Fear is the loudest of them, ego is the most persistent, other people's advice plays on a loop in the background, and wishful thinking dresses up as confidence and is the hardest one to spot. The heart sounds like none of these.
The test I have come to trust is very simple. The heart's answer is usually the one you did not want to hear. It is the one your logic was working hard to talk you out of. It is quiet, it speaks once, and it does not argue back.
If you want to test this for yourself, start journaling. Write down the decisions you are about to make and what your heart is saying, even when it sounds illogical. Come back to those entries six months later. You will find out the truth about which voice was right all along.
When in your life did you listen to your heart, even though every reasonable thing said no, and it turned out to be the right call?