If you make your decision(s) to pursue your desire(s), or not, based on the expectation that it will make you feel more happy or less pain, you are most probably doomed.

How many people want to be in a relationship to be more happy to only encounter even more pain?

How often do you do things that you don't want to do expecting that it will make you happy in the longer run to only find out that you keep heading away from yourself?

How often people choose for a career that looks promising to only find out years later that they climbed someone else's mountain?

No pursuit of any desire based on the expectation of happiness will guarantee any more happiness or less pain in the future.

What if I would suggest that the only true foundation for pursuing your desire or not is your heart's truth?

And then taking full responsibility for the consequences, no matter if it turns out the way you wanted it or not. Because you can.

I had it in the past years that I would go for something I truly desired and it would turn out totally not how I imagined it, even sometimes creating breaks in relationships without me wanting it, yet I don't have regrets because I followed my heart's truth of that moment and until the last moment I was doing the best I knew in my heart.

I did have regrets about choices I made that were based on the expectation of a good outcome while it was not my heart's truth, and even if it turned out OK, the aftertaste was mhee and I still did wonder what would happen if I followed my heart's truth. These are the situations I sometimes re-visit in my consciousness and they serve me as a lesson to never trade my heart's truth for any possible amazing outcome in the future.