Don't Follow Your Heart: Boldly Breaking the Ten Commandments of Self-Worship

Why chasing after expressive individualism, experiences, and desires always fails to deliver on its promise of happiness.

Today we are told to be true to ourselves, look within for answers, and follow our hearts. But when we put our own happiness first, we experience record-breaking levels of aimlessness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Self-centeredness always fails to deliver the fulfillment we're seeking.

In Don't Follow Your Heart, Thaddeus Williams debunks the "ten commandments of self-worship," which include popular propaganda, like:

#liveyourbestlife: Thou shalt always act in accord with your chief end—to glorify and enjoy yourself forever.#followyourheart: Thou shalt obey your emotions at all costs.#yolo: Thou shalt pursue the rush of boundary-free experience.

Williams builds a case that this type of self-worship is not authentic, satisfying, or edgy. Instead, its rehashing what is literally humanity's oldest lie. He calls on a new generation of mavericks and renegades, heretics who refuse to march in unison with the self-obsessed herd. With a fascinating blend of theology, philosophy, science, psychology, and pop culture, Williams points us to a life beyond self-defeating dogmas to a more meaningful life centered on Someone infinitely more interesting, satisfying, and awesome than ourselves.

Featuring stories from Carl Trueman, Joni Eareckson Tada, J.P, Moreland, Josh McDowell, Alisa Childers, and more.

"Following the herd is leading our generation off a cliff. Maybe a little heresy can do us a lot of good." —Collin Hansen