Should suppresses want

This was originally published on my newsletter.

A few weeks ago I finished the Art of Accomplishment Master Class, an eight week course that is largely about welcoming and feeling all your emotions.

There was one particular lesson, which explored the relationship between want and should, that really caught my attention. It’s become a cliché that you should (ha) avoid using should, because should brings with it a kind of heaviness of expectations.

There’s even an expression – “don’t should all over yourself — that has become the kind of advice that we hear, say “yeah, I really should stop doing that” and then change precisely nothing.

This time, though, I found a way to actually stop the should process, and it does indeed work. It’s quite annoying for something that clichéd to actually work, but I guess they’re clichés for a reason.

What really stood out to me is what happens when should and want overlap.

When I want something, without the should, I feel un-conflicted about pursuing it and things generally feel light and easy.

When I feel like I should do something—or, perhaps worse, should want something—the whole experience is tight and pressured. I should do this project at work, but because I feel like I should I’m going to procrastinate, moan and not enjoy it.

But what if I feel like I should do something that I also want to do? In my experience, the should overrides and shuts down the want. It becomes much harder to see and experience my wants when they’re shrouded in should.

There are a lot of big decisions in life—whether or not to go to university, whether to have a child, whether to go for the promotion—that come with an externally-derived should.

Imagine not knowing if you want to have children because you’ve been too exposed to the idea that you should (“all of your ancestors reproduced!”) or shouldn’t (“the planet can’t handle more people!”). I realised that this is the situation I’m in for many things, and I suspect I’m not alone.

The way out of this, I think, is to look clearly at all the should narratives and give yourself full permission not to comply with any of them.

Then, when the power of should has been reduced, remember that the underlying want remains. Now is the time to listen for it, protect it from being poisoned by other people’s expectations, and go after it.