Trust Your Gut

When somebody says to trust your gut, what exactly does that mean? That's a pretty big idea to instill in somebody’s mind, and is that person even giving you sage advice. And is it always a good expression to live by? Usually, If you wanted to make a decision, you would use intuition or strategy. But which one is better? Having a gut feeling based on logic is proven to be more accurate than one based on emotions. Whether you use intuition, your gut feeling, or logic, both are a matter of trusting yourself. Some people have good trust in their intuition, others may have a harder time trusting themselves with making the right decisions. Gut feelings are different for everyone, but do they always lead you in the right direction? The thing about gut feelings is that you don’t know if they are right or wrong. It isn’t the best idea to trust them all the time, but instead trust yourself with making a decision that feels right to you and represents what you stand for. From my experiences, my gut is right about things about half of the time. I used to think that going with my gut meant being spontaneous about making decisions, but now I realize that that is not what it means. Spontaneous means doing something on the spot without giving it much thought. I learned that that's not at all what it means, and to use your intuition and gut feeling, you have to slow down, give yourself time to think it through, and then take a leap of faith with what your gut tells you. I try to base my decisions off of logic and reasoning, but if something doesn’t feel right to me, my decisions may change. Whenever I trust my gut, the outcome is always different, which makes It hard for me to want to use it again. It’s not very comfortable not knowing which path you're going down, and whether it’s right or wrong, but that's where you have to look around and try to stay on the path that benefits you, others, and your community. I wonder how much gut feelings have impacted today's world. Does intuition have an impact on war? The environment? Our community today? I wonder how much of that “gut feeling” it took for me to become who I am today. 

Written by Rachel Williams

Grade 7