The Shoulds Are Taking Over.

And I’m not even sure I should share it.

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

I find myself with a little extra space and quiet today. Space and quiet that I long for when I don’t have it. But, I often fear the space I desperately want because when I have this openness in my time and my mind…the shoulds take over.

I have long used the phrase “don’t should on yourself” borrowed from an unremembered source but so clearly articulating a familiar feeling. What I should be doing.

In adulting, there are many necessary shoulds. I should brush my teeth daily. I should sleep regularly. I should include water in my diet. I should pay the electricity bill to have power. Reasonable.

But there are Shoulds that whisper scathingly into my ears, that creep around my mind in ways that make me want to retreat to the couch buried in streaming television and potato chips. The ideas themselves aren’t necessarily bad but it’s the intonation of the should, the sneering, the judgment. You should use this time to write, to exercise, to eat a vegetable. All good things.  

But I can’t access the good because I feel I’ve failed before I begin.

So, I eat iced Christmas cookies I made with my son.

I have long tried to understand this paralysis, this avoidance. I have acquired so many tools for successful living but there is always a sheen of “do more,” “be more.” My inability to measure what is enough panics me, debilitates me.

I am unfamiliar with resting in “good enough.” There is resignation, a mediocrity in it, and mediocre feels like the ultimate sin. I can see that some of this could read like “confessions of a perfectionist” but I often declare, I’m not a perfectionist, because I’m not, well, perfect. I am simply not good enough to be a perfectionist. This word conjures myopic focus, discipline, and drive not re-watching Gilmore Girls as a soothing balm for anxiety.

More Christmas cookies.

I write this for two reasons, to explore the anxiety I feel as I type these words, and to share descriptions of an experience I think might be familiar to others. It is an isolating feeling, the crushing sensation of compounding shoulds.  

With that sentence comes an arrow, from the back of my mind to my chest, causing a geyser of anxiety like Old Faithful. The sensation accompanies a vision of a woman standing above me, arms crossed, rolling her eyes in contempt as she says, “Really? You pathetic, navel-gazing comfortable middle-class whiner. Why should you have feelings or needs or angst?”

Of course, she is me. 

And she is very unkind.

Perhaps the biggest should is that I must stay in motion when I want to sit. That I have space means I should fill it. And not just with anything. I should fill it well. With sit-ups or a chapter in a heady cultural analysis or chores. Apparently, the toilets aren’t going to clean themselves.

Perhaps this is all insipid and vapid and easily cured with all the things people post about on social media, all the shoulds that they accomplish.

But, I am beat down by all the shoulds.

Right now, there is one should calling for attention. I can hear it faintly in the distance. It gently suggests I should take a look at all of this. Examine it. Ask, what is this about?

Perhaps I should even share it. There is often compassion in sharing.