You've heard it before: now that Christmas is over and we are looking at the New Year, I'm ready to re-committ to all of the things that I should do and toss (easily) aside all of the things that I shouldn't do.
One of the first things that I should start up again is regular blogging. To give up: chocolate, which if you know me will be super easy because I don't even like chocolate....it's just found it's way into my home over the holidays via well meaning friends and actually, I have found that it is, aferall, quite satisfying in a rich sort of surgary way.
But I've been thinking about the whole should/shouldn't thing....what to do with that? A wise friend (OK, she was my therapist) once told me that when a person uses the word should in a sentence, a red flag appears along with it. As in "I can't seem to do any of the things that I should be doing." Well then, maybe you need to re-think what it is you are doing.
This was great news to me, as growing up in a strict Calvinist home and community in western Michigan, my world was full of unquestionable shoulds. And first born that I am -- I adhered to most of them with a kind of temperment that was productive if not exactly gracious. But I got a lot done, and I only napped on Sunday afternoons.
A definition for should: must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency). We don't like to think in terms of must or even the gentler ought, because it defines obligation put upon us by someone else...."I'll do it because I want to, not because I have to, not because you told me to, not because I ought to." Ought? There's an old fashioned kind of tyranny that we resist, because no one, not anyone, likes to be bossed around.
My boys, who generally prefer to put things in question/answer format and who don't appear to have the anxiety of shoulds clouding up their personalities, put it this way: "Why should I?"
Which is a hard question for me to answer as the response is usually, "because" and "because I said so." The long, drawn out, complicated explanations get lost in their uncomplicated thinking, so adding a simple "please" always seemed to me to be enough to get the job done.
So my kids got a break from many of the shoulds because it made life easier for everyone, mostly me. One problem, though. As it turns out, life is actually easier in the long run if you just listen to some of the shoulds in the world. As Nike so simply put it: "Just do it."
Just go to class, just organize your notes, just do the reading, the homework, the projects. Just get on the treadmill, eat more vegetables, read more, love more - whatever it is - do it, and reach for help if you need to. Because that's how we all move along and especially move ahead. That's how we accomplish. That's why. That's why we should. We can drop the anxiety, maybe some of it, but not the focus or the effort.
So for the New Year 2011, I am going to embrace my heritage anew, get my shoulds together, and intentionally work at my blogging.
What's your 2011 New Year's should? Leave me a comment and let me know. g
