For much of my life, I was susceptible to a particular brand of confusion that generally clouded up my thinking and weakened my resolve. Though in many ways this type of thinking was well-meaning, it often had a highly negative affect on me.
We’ll call it “should thinking.” As in, “Chris, you should do this thing right here, because they say that it is a good thing to do…” Or “Chris, you should really not do this thing because you don’t want that bad thing to happen to you, do you?” In other words, this is the advice of other people–or perhaps an internalized voice trying to “look out for me”–preaching its version of what is “right” for me to do. Though often well-intended, it often amounts to crap advice.
Here’s why: should thinking tends to come from somewhere other than an authentic desire. In fact, it may always come from somewhere else. In other words, it doesn’t usually arise naturally from within, as a desire or inner motivation. If it did, we wouldn’t be thinking that we “should” do it, would we? We would already be doing it!
Instead, this thinking comes in the form of advice from some well-meaning person (or perhaps from our own mind) after deciding that such-and-such a course of action is what we should do. There is nothing wrong with well-meaning people trying to advise us, even if they may be completely wrong, or completely clueless about the relevance of their advice to our situation. Like it or not, this is probably an unavoidable occurrence from time to time. The problem starts when we listen to advice without first consulting our own instincts, preferences, hunches, desires, and opinions.
I was guilty of this too many times! I learned the hard way how painful life can become when one does not consult one’s true thoughts and feelings when making important decisions in life. This is essential in honoring yourself, and it is huge motivation for me in my happiness obsession!
So, while people can say whatever they want to say, it is up to us to filter their advice through our own personal satisfaction test. When someone gives you advice on what to do, or if you think up an idea that you think you “should” do, ask yourself, “Is this idea satisfying? How does thinking of carrying out this advice feel?”
You’ll know right away if it feels good or not.
For example, in a blog post I linked to above, I examined my thoughts on extreme savers who became financially independent by saving 50% or more of their income. I realized that thinking about this topic was making me frustrated and unhappy. While a part of me truly resonated with the topic–in fact got quite excited about it– I wasn’t yet in a place of alignment with that particular course of action. So I ended up berating myself a lot, telling myself that I “should” aim to be like these people (now, dammit! now!). In fact, I was trying to force myself to take on a standard I just wasn’t ready for. This put unnecessary and excess pressure on myself.
In other words, it totally sucked.
We don’t need to be following advise that sucks for us 🙂 There are so many avenues and outlets and paths and directions to take in any walk of life. You can find the path that is right for you, but in order to do so, you need to be discerning. It is important to sift through the available options and find the ones that are satisfying.
Otherwise you might very well be dumping a big pile of “should” on yourself.
Don’t do that! Dump the “should!”