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When I was 28 I had a conversation with my therapist about the word “should.” It was early in my time with her so I was just getting used to the way she challenged me about statements I hadn’t thought twice about. The conversation this time was about laundry.
I should do laundry tonight but I don’t want to.
So don’t.
But then I won’t have any clean underwear for tomorrow.
Do you want to wear clean underwear?
Yes, of course, I do.
Then you want to do laundry.
Well, I don’t want to do it, I have to do it, otherwise, my clothes won’t be clean.
Is somebody forcing you to do it?
No, but…
I started to understand the true impotence of the word should, how unhelpful it was in actually propelling me to action. It wasn’t a motivator, it was a stressor. The thought pattern I had become locked into constantly made me feel like I was lagging behind where I needed to be. I have rarely felt lacking and happy at the same time.
I am constantly berated by the demands of my own idealized reality. The voice inside my head distorts how I view myself and the world around me. While I have done well to remove should from my daily language, it’s inclinations are still there, a fleet of small but determined mental whack-a-moles.
Eventually, I stopped seeing that therapist. My awareness had been permanently impacted though. I had never before experienced a subtle shift that so dramatically changed my inner and outer monologue.
I would still slip, occasionally trying to trick myself by saying I “had” to do something. “Had” was just a more extreme should. The same meaning with a higher consequence.
My learnings were perfectly timed with the feelings I was having at that point in my life. Being in my late 20s somehow released me from certain obligations. I no longer spent time with people who were consistently negative. I said no to opportunities I knew would not make me happy. I let down my guard a bit more, embraced vulnerability. There was a tremendous relief in realizing I had an agency over my life, one I hadn’t yet experienced or understood.
I also realized how prevalent the word should was in the language of my friends. The shoulds and shouldn’t were joined by a host of other “have to’s,” “need to’s,” and other iterations that all said the same thing: I feel obligated to do something I don’t want to do.
These should’s propel us into decisions, sometimes without adequate consideration. We are all impacted by forces of which we are not aware: Yes, the people we spend the most time with, but also the messaging we hear but don’t pay attention to, the norms we see and never question, the path we perceive as expected. The word should become a prison, trapping its unwitting victims in a series of interconnected decisions.
The narrative of should is baked into our culture at all levels. It drives the market in overt ways. Think back to the years leading up to the housing crisis of 2008. The belief everybody should own a home, and the ability to suddenly get (not afford, get) a mortgage, led many people to buy a home that would ruin them financially.
A report came out recently showing how much that “housing should” is impacting the future of people ages 21 to 34. The article said:
To finance their purchases, one in three millennial homeowners withdrew money from or took loans against their retirement accounts, according to Bank of the West’s survey of over 600 U.S. adults ages 21-34. Meanwhile, one in five millennials who are planning to buy a home expect to do the same.
People are so desperate to own a home they are putting their ability to afford their retirement in jeopardy. One of the hallmarks of short-sightedness is giving up a greater return in the future in exchange for receiving a lesser return in the present.
As many of my friends have married, bought homes, and had kids before me, I have been able to witness and hear them talk about the mistakes they made and what they would have done differently.
Their language is infused with a sadness, at the lesser end; a reticence to act, in extreme; a general discontent with how life has turned out.
I should have gone to college where I wanted instead of staying home and going to a shitty state school.
I thought buying a house close to my brother meant he would help with the kids, but he never does.
I should have stayed single instead of marrying an annoying Greek girl.
For the record that last one was told to me by a Greek man… which makes it no less terrible.
Should is very much the guiding hand of our life choices. It pushes us forward, backward, and sideways, into scenarios we may or may not want. It obscures itself, masquerades as want. We should… because we want to.
After I graduated college I went to Australia and New Zealand for a month. It was an incredible time I would have gladly extended. While I wasn’t being pushed to return, and I wasn’t financially obligated to either, I chose to come home and look for a job. I kept saying I was ready to start working, I wanted to. It was partly true. But I really thought to wait too long would make companies wonder why I had taken so much time off after college.
I would venture to say when people don’t know what to do next, they choose what they think they should do.
Should is always there. Every day, in every year of my life. “What should I do?” I ask myself. Even today I feel it. After a year of particularly frustrating realizations, I am aware of the should’s I continue to hold on to. The choices I should have made, what I should have accomplished by now.
They are, collectively, a single piece of rolly luggage I dragged behind me for many years. I will hopefully one day let go of that handle entirely. Anticipating the satisfying sound when it finally hits the floor, as empty as it is useless.
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