My gut was the one that told me that hey, maybe after your first girlfriend broke up with you, the right way to win her back back is to throw yourself into your work at MIT and call her up in tears every night for a month. My gut was the one that said: that extra slice of cake is what you want right now and will have no bearing on your fitness goals. It was the one that said: I want to appear logical and deep because somehow having other people treat me as logical and deep makes me feel like I'm actually more logical and deep.

My gut is the one that keeps telling me: the computer screen and facebook is more important than starting your homework assignment due in two days. My verbal brain ("I'll do it tomorrow!") simply gives rationalizations to this pre-written bottom line.

I don't think my gut actually follows logic, nor does anyone's. My gut's motivation comes from hard-won experience and tells me in the blink of an eye what I think will happen at any point in time. It has incredible power, and it also does not use an ounce of logical reasoning.

So why do I think my gut is telling me something so reasoned and noble as: "I want to work hard at work because I know that doing so will help me with my friends and family?"