Should |

"Our suffering is caused by holding on to what things might have been, should have been, could have been." -Stephen Levine 

Tonight is a melancholy sort of mood. It's dusk and the cold air arrives in your lungs like an awakening. The sun was shining today, dancing gleefully in the sky--but now it's gone and we have lived another day. 

Lockdown this time around has been hard. The kind of hard when you feel days falling into one another like dominos. You do not know where one starts and the other ends. It feels hopeless-with no end in sight. 

I discovered something about myself this month- that I never knew. It's a term noted as "toxic positivity". You use it to express happiness regardless of what you are going through. "There is always a reason to be happy," I thought. "You should be more grateful."

But sometimes life is hard. And you can acknowledge that. It doesn't make you ungrateful, it makes you honest. 

And then I realized that I was living in this world of should. I should be happy. I should be grateful. 

I had to stop myself and think. "What have I been missing in my life all this time of thinking that I should be doing something?"

My mind began to race, circling through my thoughts.

We have this funny habit in our society that imposes shoulds on people in a deceivingly helpful way. 

You should graduate college at a certain age. 

You should buy a house. 

You should have kids before you're 30.

You should be this way. 

Which than got me thinking-"What decisions have I made in my life, purely because I was told I should do them?" 

This brought me to a further realization. I edit what I say to people. I'm hyper aware of how I present myself, how I am respond, what I say. If you are constantly met with criticism, it becomes a barrier. It's almost as if I'd rather be untrue to who I am than allow people to experience all of me. 

Who else does this? How many of us are living a shell of what we could be completely? It doesn't mean you have to be everything to everyone, but it does mean you need to be authentic. And I don't even think it's a matter of being real vs. fake. It's a matter of applying a version of yourself in an environment that is suitable to the crowd. 

I told Greg a few months ago that whenever I am around my family, I always assume the role of the youngest child. It's to the point that it's almost instinctive. I bury myself in the role of the youngest child because it's more comfortable to be typecast, than to allow my family to appreciate that I have grown and changed. 

I am a successful career woman, with an incredible husband and amazing goals (some achieved and some a work in progress), and yet I stoop to that level because I feel the pressure of the should. 

Ultimately, years from now, people will not remember what milestones you met in what timeline, or any for that matter. 

What will matter most is that you lived your life authentically, being honest with those who love you the most and when you were presented with the pressure of the should, you took it with grace and moved forward. 

My goal for 2021 is to stop putting pressure on myself for any timeline or agenda imposed on me. I am determined to revel in the present-enjoying all uncertainties that come my way with poise and resilience.