Should

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
Chinese Proverb

Is there any word that creates more tension in us than "should" On the one hand, there is what we (our ego) thinks we should do. On the other hand there is what someone else thinks we should do (and every other person probably has a different idea of what that is). And neither of these might match what we want to do. So which one should we listen to? (there's that should word again) Who is right? Who is wrong? And how do you decide?

The word "should" signals giving advice, an opinion, or a recommendation. It implies that the other person (or even your ego) knows better than you do. It is only one step down from "must", from giving orders. And the more the other person thinks that they are right, the more it feels to us like a command. And the less that "command" agrees with what we want to do, the more resistance we feel. We feel tension because we feel we are being manipulated into doing something different from what we want to do.

Relaxation is who you are. Imagine how much better you would feel in a world without anyone telling you what you should do. Without your ego constantly giving you unwanted advice about what you should do. If you only felt it necessary to do what you wanted, you would be much better able to express yourself. So often, all other people express is just a mishmash of other people's "should"s. They have forgotten who they really are because they spend so much time trying to do what they think they should instead of what they want to. Don't make that mistake any more. Listen to your own intuition instead of other people's shoulds. Banish the world should from your vocabulary.