In 2005, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Stanford University. Toward the end of the speech, Jobs said, “And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” There may have been times in his life when that advice served him well. Yet Jobs’s commitment to follow his heart and intuition likely shortened his life.

Jobs initially opted for alternative treatments for his pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer. He spent nine months pursuing alternative medicine such as acupuncture, dietary supplements, and juices, reportedly against the advice of doctors who recommended immediate surgical intervention. By the time he agreed to undergo surgery, the cancer had progressed. While it’s speculative to say how much this decision impacted the course of his illness, it’s an example where his inclination to follow his heart had serious repercussions.

Jobs didn’t invent the idea of following your heart, of course, but he helped popularize it for a new generation. In a recent article, Thaddeus Williams pushes back against Jobs’s advice and gives five good reasons why we shouldn’t follow our heart. “Validating our every feeling seems exhilarating—at first. But we end up trapped inside our own mental constructs,” says Williams. “We become what David Foster Wallace called ‘lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.’ Looking inside our hearts doesn’t give us limitless freedom but a bad case of claustrophobia.”