I’ll admit it. I’ve been negligent.
The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions, and I have enough asphalt for an eight-lane superhighway.
My intention was to be Ms. Diligent Pants and post at least every three days. It’s been two months. When I decided to start a blog, my thought had been to use it as a vehicle for writing, a reason to practice really. But, when push comes to shove, and fingers come to keyboard, stuff came out, but little got posted.
So here’s to a new leaf, it being autumn and all…
A Bad Case of the Shoulds
Theoretically, the best part about being me is that I get to do what I want. Oversimplied? Likely. Untrue? Rarely. Easy? Not by a long shot. Because after thirty odd years (some of them very odd, indeed) of doing what I should do, it’s hard to be clear on things that I actually want to do (lying in bed, drinking, eating potato chips, and reading novels notwithstanding). In some ways, knowing what’s good for you is easy: eat right, exercise, drink plenty of water, and get plenty lots of sleep. Those are the basics. But finding out what’s good for you in other ways can be a bit more challenging, and that’s where the “shoulds” come in.
There are two types of “shoulds”. There are the ones that come from other people, whether implicit, like “You should be thinner than you are because the woman on this magazine cover is” or explicit, like “You should visit your mother more often.” Then there are the ones that come from within, like “I should really clean the kitchen” or “I should go back to school and get a Masters.” And while neither type is particularly helpful, the inner “shoulds” are much more insidious.
There’s no denying that the external “should” can wreak havoc on your self esteem at best and just be plain annoying at worst, but for most people, rationality can overcome them (that woman’s been photoshopped and mother can make do with another phone call for this month). But the from within “shoulds” are a different matter. They go deeper and have to do with the consideration of our values and how they fit with us. You’ve witnessed enough of the “shoulds” from other people and have started to internalize them so that you can no longer distinguish them from your own thoughts.
Once you know they’re there, how do you get around them? These bits of life that are like a pair of pants that you try on in the store that look great on the rack, are very stylish, and are even the right size, but once they’re on, they’re somehow not comfortable, and don’t look or feel “you”. Sometimes they’re easy to discard; they’re obviously not right. Other times, you might find that you question yourself, and those times are a little less simple.
The key might just be to learn what your style is, and be okay with it.
That’s the big thing–being okay with it. Again, it’s the easiest thing in the world to say, hardest to do. I’m sure there are people out there who don’t succumb to these “shoulds”, people who are so solidly themselves that it’s impossible to be anything else. But I suggest they’re not the majority, and I’m sure I’m not one of them. I’m not that evolved, or mature, or fully grown or actualized if you want to use psychobabble. When you really get down to it, life might just be all about trying things on to find the “youness” of them.