Let your heart lead the way

I've never been much of a gambler except when it comes to love, so when a friend came to me for advice a few days ago, I was surprised to find myself hesitating in my opinion.

As far as my own life is concerned I've always been one to let my heart lead the way but when it comes to my friends I'm a strong proponent of caution. The thought of someone I care about getting hurt is one that sends chills down my spine and as such I started by giving her advice that I myself would never follow.

This is a friend who takes life as she sees it. She's spontaneous and fun and always game for a laugh at the drop of a dime, but when it comes to her career, caution has always been the name of the game and it's one of the things I've always admired most about her. She knows what she wants and would never normally allow a man to come in and derail her from her path, but recently she's met a man that makes her smile like no other before and to see them together is as adorable as it is sickening.

The problem is she was planning on leaving Bahrain next month and taking up a new job back home but now that love has come knocking on her door she doesn't want to turn it away.

As humans we're generally so concerned about getting hurt that we tend to play things safe and not take a gamble. The thought being that if we don't take a risk we won't get hurt and if we don't play against the odds we won't have anything to lose. The reality though is the complete opposite.

Playing safe only means that we're stopping others from hurting us without realising that in exchange we're the ones doing ourselves the injustice. By shutting ourselves off from a chance at happiness we're condemning ourselves to never living life as it's supposed to be lived.

Happiness isn't something that comes along every day and we should take it wherever we can. It's much better to grab it with both hands and enjoy the ride while it lasts - whether it's two days, two months or two decades - than to take life with caution and live with regret.

Few have heard of Otomo No Yakamochi or the words he once wrote: "Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there," and there's a reason those words are so unfamiliar to us.

To live life like that is to never feel the rush of pure warmth that races through your veins when realisation hits you that you've fallen in love. To love and be loved in return is a feeling like no other, it's a joy that nothing else in life can replicate.

Far better to live by Alfred Lord Tennyson's far more famous and recognised words: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Yes, more often than not love ends in tears and heartbreak but no one has ever died of a broken heart. As intense a feeling as love is, like everything in life, it has its opposite when it's all over, but just as love dies so does the pain you feel when it's over. We've all been hurt at one time or another and left with the feeling that the world is about to crumble around our ears and nothing will ever be the same again but that feeling you experience when you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and dive again feet first right back into love is worth every ounce of hurt that came before it.

The advice I ended up giving my friend? Grab love with both hands and enjoy the ride. The worst that can happen is it doesn't work out... and so what? It won't be the end of the world. I'd like to think that she took my advice and I had a part in bringing some happiness into her life but the truth of the matter is she already knew the decision she was going to make before she asked for my thoughts and faced with the happiness the two of them feel when they're together, who wouldn't make the right decision? Welcome to Bahrain for another year babe!