The Shoulds

Rough Transcript:

There's this voice in my head that speaks up now and again - maybe you have it too. 

I call it 'The Shoulds’ 

I should be doing more productive things, I should find this easier, I shouldn't be so tired I should have better habits, I should go to bed earlier and so on.

The Shoulds get ticked off when I have a day of lazing about, or if I spend too much time playing videogames or browsing YouTube. 

It's this inner voice that no matter what says "hey, that’s fine but you're not where you should be with all this”

It even sometimes berates me for not having enough fun, though fun activities are rarely on its agenda. It tells me I should enjoy life more but God forbid I get too carried away with a friend, there's work to be done. 

I have mixed feelings about the Shoulds. They can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but a part of me is really thankful for them.

I first heard the Shoulds when I was very young, I don't quite recall when I first heard it whisper, but I know when I heard it shout. It was in my primary school, I was 9 years old. Our classes were set by ability, and I was put in the class second from the top. The Shoulds weren’t happy. “You’re not quite there. You should be better”

As I was put in that class my heart sank. Almost all my friends were in the other classes. It felt like I was told that I wasn’t good enough. But the Shoulds didn’t accept that. I started to work really hard. I remember one day it was announced that we would have a history test, and we might be asked on anything we had learned so far that year - an entire small books’ worth. I remember the fear of not doing well, and just this feeling of frustration that I was on the wrong train tracks of life or something. 

The next day, in the morning, my dad walks into my room to wake me up for school and he finds me sitting on my floor reading my notes. I had woken up at 6, and had been studying since - just to get some extra revision in before the day started. The test was a week away.

That same Shoulds spoke up to throughout middle school and university. It helped me to work more when it was clear my friends worked harder than me. It helped me get up earlier and work out it, it helped me be a better person because I should have been. 

And at any one point it usually doesn't feel like it's asking for much. It doesn’t think I should be an Olympian or a millionaire already or cure cancer it just thinks I should be able to sit down and write consistently or that I should be better at all this by now. My full potential isn't infinite, it's just I'm not there yet. 

It's ambitious for me. If I should be better it implies that maybe I can be, and there’s hope in that. 

But obviously it’s never satisfied, and some days it feels like I want a day off from the Shoulds. But I don't really, and I think I know why. 

Because the Shoulds are really telling me that I'm better than everyone else. That I’m somehow more than what I am, that I have some hidden talent to give that I didn’t earn, that I'm a genius at the piano who just hasn't touched the keys yet, or an artist who just doesn’t have the right tools. It’s a seductive narrative, and yet there’s a perpetual tragedy unfolding - in whatever I do, I’m forever one step away from the perfect image of myself that I should be, which gets brutally sacrificed moment-to-moment. I may not reach this perfect me but at least I can tell myself that I was somehow meant to. The Shoulds think I'm an extraordinary person, who happens to be living a ordinary life. 

When in reality I'm not extraordinary. I’m a normal person. To think otherwise is just ego. Delusion.

There’s a fine line between self grandeur and self belief. The latter is healthy, and built on trust. The former is just you lying to yourself. 

I’m not sure I’ve solved this problem, but here’s my current solution - I’ve been trying to turn the Shoulds into coulds with a ? Could I do more? Can I? Can I write a bit more today? Because the coulds ask a question - just for today - and I get to answer that. And if the answer for today is no that’s fine, I’ll ask again tomorrow if I want to. There’s no shame in knocking on the door. 

But then the Shoulds speaks up and it says that's some top tier crap come on you're not like them do you really need all this positive affirmation nonsense. You're not normal you're special this doesn't apply to you it shouldn't. 

So when I hear this voice I try and give it a hug - mentally - and say thank you. There’s no shame in being normal, or in failing, or in not being the best. I'm not the best, I'm average until I prove otherwise. I don’t get to be what I should be, but I am what I choose to be.

But hey, I’m curious about what I can do too, and maybe you have a point - it’s possible I could do more. So hey, Shoulds, let's see what we can do today.

Let me know how you deal with the Shoulds - are they healthy? How do you deal with them?