Shining, Shimmering, Splendid

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?

Those are famous lyrics from one of the best-known Disney films, Aladdin. How touching such simple words intended for children can be. These words not only showcase the idea of pure love, but they also show the rose colored glasses through which we see the world with our prince charming next to us.

Are our eyes closed until someone opens them up for us? Is it naive to see the world this way? Can we really feel so safe and so content with that one special person next to us that even in all the ugliness the world has, that we can really describe it as "shining, shimmering, and splendid"? Does love really blind us so much that we choose to see the good rather than the bad?

There is so much beauty behind the end of that verse: "Tell me princess, when did you last let your heart decide?" In today's day and age, it seems that love is dictated by logic and reason. We allow ourselves or convince ourselves to fall in love or hold back from certain people because it is not "right".

It is rare that we allow difficult decisions to be decided by our hearts, mostly out of fear. Our hearts always decide with our emotions while our heads rely on logic and reasoning. And even after that entire process, how many times have we looked back and realized that we made the wrong decision? Maybe it is time to start trusting ourselves and allowing our intuition to speak freely, rather than hushing it with our rationale.

Most of the time, our intuition will guide us to the right decision; we just need to be willing to allow our hearts to tell us what’s right for us. So maybe it is time for us to really listen to our hearts when making decisions about life and love. We need to have faith in our instinctive ability to protect ourselves from pain and loss. Our fear of getting hurt paralyzes us from taking leaps of faith that could prove to be rewarding. So is it really better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? Of course it is, because that means letting your heart decide.