Beware a sense of “should”

I’ve noticed that my world tends to become richer and more colorful when I express wariness of “should” impulses that arise within me. By this I mean urges which spring from a sense of duty or obligation. I “should” clean up the house; I “should” do something useful with my afternoon even though I don’t feel like working; etc.

Very concretely, I’ve had a lot of (spiritual/emotional) success spending at least one day each weekend doing my best to ignore those urges, just doing whatever seems pleasurable and committing to nothing.

This is of course not a unique idea. See e.g.:

You can almost always re-state a should-sentence without the should. … “I should call my father this week” might cash out to “if I don’t call my father this week, he’ll feel disappointed and lonely.” “I shouldn’t play that video game” might cash out to “if I play that video game, I’ll lose lots of time that I was planning to use for studying.

Last updated 2023-07-13.