“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” ~Proverb
A friend of mine once said, “If there’s a word in the English language I detest, it’s ’should.’ What a pointless, useless, waste-of-space (euphemism for other choice adjective) word.”
I think he’s right on the money. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, you should consider the definition of should, as defined by dictionary.com:
Should: must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency): You should not do that.
There is always something we feel we cannot and should not do for fear of humiliation, regret, having to explain ourselves to others, and sometimes to ourselves.
Should is an instrument of regret. Maybe one of these sounds familiar to you:
- I should not have lashed out near the end of my last long-term relationship.
- He should not have been so insensitive or distant; that way I wouldn’t have lashed out.
- I should really get a grip on life; people must think I’m unmotivated and stagnant.
- I shouldn’t contact him so often; he must think I’m annoying or needy.
- I should stop acting upon my emotions because I’ll regret it later.
- I should clearly try harder because my boss doesn’t give me the time of day.
Some of these decisions may not lead to the results you want in life. But does it serve you to tag on a conditional disclaimer to everything you’ve said or done in the past? It does if you want, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, to “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (The Great Gatsby). (more…)