Ages ago, I tore out the column A Beautiful Mind by Francesca Hornak from one of the Sunday Times supplements. It was about following our instincts. To quote the article: " Caught in a dilemma, it's easy to turn to a pros and cons list, as you try to think your way to an answer. But perhaps there is a better way. 'Often the brain is telling us to 'do this, do that,' but we'd do better to tune into our emotions,' says the life coach Susie Pearl. 'Imagine you're in a meeting and you get a gut feeling about someone that you don't trust them. But you ignore it and think, 'I'm being silly.' Don't ignore it. Your instincts give you the most acute version of what's going on in your life and what will lead you to be happy.' Pearl believes that we could pre-empt many future regrets if we acted on our intuition and behaved 'irrationally' rather than obeying our rational mind. The trouble is, many of us are so used to suppressing our emotions that we are deaf to our instincts. 'If you've lost it - just practise stopping the chat in your head and notice how you feel instead,' Pearl says, 'Meditation or just sitting still and daydreaming are great ways to tune back into your intuition. And the next time you're in a quandary, if you find you're inclined one way or the other, listen and act on it. Your emotions are your best GPS.' (Instructions for Happiness and Success by Susie Pearl. happinessandsuccess.org)