Few things are as misunderstood as following your heart.
Most often people think that it means doing whatever it is you feel like doing at any point in time. But this will only lead to you wasting your energy and chasing your tail, because in the short term the heart is notoriously fickle.
In the short term our feelings tend toward instant gratification. Our short-term emotions often gravitate to whatever will give us a quick buzz, a short-term high. This is not a good way to live. It makes us flabby and idle and, in the long run, it will leave us unfulfilled.
But yet at the same time the heart is the very best compass we have to point us in the direction we should go.
How can this be?
Because our short-term whims are often the direct opposite of what will make us happiest.