What should I do about all the shoulds in my life?

I don't like the word should. Should implies that there is something I ought to do, and if I don't do what I ought to do – that I am bad, a sinner, stupid, or foolish. The word should causes me to have a should-y attitude.

Nevertheless, when I hear the word should I feel like a kid missing out on something, and about to be punished for not doing what I should have done.

I don't seem to be able to avoid the word should, at least not in my mind. Maybe, with great effort I can stop myself from saying, "I should do this," or "I should have done that," but that word is still in my mind.
And should is not just a word, not to me, it is also an emotion. The word should feels like guilt, fear, and shame. Just hearing the word should sends negative emotions flowing through my capillaries and it seems to me this surge of emotion contain about fifty percent Chipolata sauce.

Sometimes the word should imply fairness. For every should there is a shouldn't. The should is FAIR and the shouldn't is UNFAIR.

• The candidates should be open and honest.
• The candidates shouldn't use attack ads.

To be honest with myself, and with you, I am disenchanted with my life right now, and I don't think this disenchantment is at all unusual. I don't know if most adults are similarly sad, but I feel absolutely certain that this mood malaise is not an unusual state for grow-ups to feel.

As a child adults in my life took some role in providing for my needs, and provided me with love, entertainment, and problem solving. As we grow into adulthood there are fewer and fewer people in our lives that provide our needs, or wants, and very, very few that shield us from the pressures and pains of life. Any childhood awe that existed within us, has diminishes because of the entanglements of life, and all the demands for our time and all the effort to do what has to be done to ensure our survival and provide what we can for our family unit.

Most people who have jobs will spend at least eight hours a day at work, and many work MORE than eight hours a day. When we are not working we have a long list of obligations that must be done. You can't go to work tomorrow unless you have a clean change of clothing, so clothes have to be washed, ironing might be involved, and mending could be required from time to time. We have doctor appointments, social responsibilities, you have to go to the grocery store, and you have cooking, cleaning the dishes, and picking up the house, hauling out the trash.

If you have children you add soccer games, school activities, and squeezing in a few minutes of nurturing quality time.

If you have pets you have to go like a prospector panning for kitty poo, or walking behind Arphus with a plastic bag doing the ole puppy poo pick-up. There will be vet visits.

Toss in some quality time for yourself: regular exercise, hobbies, and political activities.

And God forbid you forget your duties to God. I was raised in a Christian fundamentalist church that demanded a minimum of 3 church services be attended each week, and if you were really faithful you would provide some service to the Lord in the form of chores around the church, or serving on some visitation committee, or preparing for and teaching Sunday school, and, let us not forget the tithe.

The cars, the housing, the clothing, the children, the pets, and the church all need funding which explains why we work so hard, and sometimes take on a part time job to meet all the funding demands in our life.

It seems like where ever I am, my mind is somewhere else. Every task I take on is done with only have my mind. The rest of my mind has jumped ahead to the next task.

All of these things demanding my attention are pressures, and stressors that insert weariness, and bleeds off what little joy had been there before. Pressures and stressors are SHOULDS.
I should work hard, I should exercise, I should spend more time with my children, I should walk the dog, I should stop and smell the roses, I should read more, pray more, and spend more time nurturing my marriage.

All these should statements have the effect of narrowing my life, and once life is sufficiently confined, once my daily existence has eliminated my options I am going to suffer from a dull, depressing hopelessness, and so will you.

What should I do about all the shoulds in my life?

1. Seek Balance:

Too many shoulds can crush a person's spirit and leave one floundering in a Navy Blue melancholia, but that does not mean that there are not things you should and should not do.

The balance comes when all your shoulds come from you, instead of someone else, and when all your shoulds are based on logic and in sync with your personal goals.

Do your should list, but do the most essential stuff, and let some stuff go, so that your life will have room for, well, your life. The key to balance is to remember that you will eventually die. Life is brief, and death is eternal. When you remember that you have a limited time to enjoy something, your should list will look a lot different.

2. Stop Being Such An Egocentric Should-y POOP-head!

Too many shoulds are a sign that you have taken on too much responsibility. The Greek myths have a story about Atlas cursed by Zeus to carry the world* on his shoulders. When you believe that things won't get done unless you do them yourself, when you feel that you are the finger in the dike, the only one who is equipped to handle problems, that the world will stop spinning if you don't do everything – then you are an aristocracy of one, and you believe you have more power and control than is possible for any human to possess.

*The story of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders is the commonly understood story, but the actual mythological story shows that this is a misunderstanding. Classical art shows Atlas holding a Celestial Sphere, not the globe. What Zeus actually did is condemn Atlas to stand at the western edge of Gaia (which is the Earth) and to hold up the Ouranos (the sky – or atmosphere) on his shoulders) to prevent the two(earth and sky) from resuming their primordial embrace.