Pretty Lynne Writes

If there is a word I would take out of our collective vocabulary, it would be should. 

Should is a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

He should have treated me better. (Absolutely, and yet he didn’t.) 

We shouldn’t have to do this. (Nope, and yet we do.)

I shouldn’t have to tell you I don’t like that. (Maybe, but how else am I going to know?)

I’m a big fan of facing the reality of any situation and dealing with the truth, rather than resisting it. The Buddhist parable of the Second Arrow describes it like this: The first arrow is the inevitable pain of being human – people die, reject us, we get hurt – but the second arrow is our response to the first. We blame ourselves and try to escape reality, causing more suffering. 

Should is a finger pointing elsewhere that keeps us from acting. 

The government should be making sure kids are fed.

Someone should make sure the old lady down the street is okay. 

Big tech should help me be less addicted to my phone. 

Our brains are fascinating organs. Scheduling or assigning a task to someone else is as satisfying to your brain as actually doing the task. 

Should is a weapon we use on ourselves. 

I should be losing weight.

I should be cleaning my house. 

I should be calling my mom. 

The etymology of the word reveals that should has a sense of obligation as the past tense of shall. We do things we should out of duty or a sense that it’s the right thing to do. But it’s rarely our own rules we are following when we say we should be doing something. 

I’ve learned to be curious when I hear myself using should. What reality am I avoiding? What action am I not taking? What am I shaming myself about doing or not doing? 

I try to replace the word. Let’s say I think “I should be calling my mom.” I feel guilty thinking about it and not doing it, and that guilt will actually make me rebel against the expectation. No one likes to be guilted into doing anything. 

If I say instead, “I want to call my mom,” the meaning shifts to something I’m doing because I choose to, not out of obligation. I’m way more likely to cooperate with this thought. 

As a writer and a human, I think the words we use, to ourselves and to others, are really important. They shape how we see and respond to the world in a profound way.

And I know it’s very unlikely that dictionaries down the line will trace the end of the usage of should to this blog post…but they should. 

(Sorry. I couldn’t resist.)