The Myth of Shoulds — The Myths Series

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The Myth of “Shoulds” — “shoulds” are dec­la­ra­tions of opin­ion pro­ject­ed on others

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“Shoulds” are the personalization of something that we declare to be an absolute. In other words, a “should” is a statement that some truth is self-evident, and “should” therefore be followed by others.

We’ve talked about the myth of absolutes, so stat­ing that some­thing is “self-evi­dent­ly and absolute­ly true” is already on shaky ground. 

This is because what is true for me is not “self-evi­dent­ly true” for you. 

The per­son who “declares a should” moves from, “This is “true” for me” to this is “true for every­one.” From there, they self-right­eous­ly declare: “I should,” so “You should.”

They emphasize how “obvious” the “should” is. 

Even though, as we all know, noth­ing is obvi­ous — and there’s not a hell of a lot that is self-evi­dent, or even evi­dent.

It does­n’t mat­ter how crafti­ly you word a “should” — it’s all the same nonsense. 

• Now, some peo­ple are clever enough to drop the word “should.” They’ll try some­thing like: “If you love me, you’d agree with me.” 
• Oth­ers lame­ly point to author­i­ties, declar­ing, “I just read a book and took a course, and I absolute­ly know for sure what you need to do.” 
• It’s no bet­ter when you say, “You should under­stand me.” All of which begs the ques­tion, “Why should (must I) I be inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing you? Maybe you’re bor­ing or just full of yourself.”

I love watch­ing kids grow up. And part of grow­ing up is dis­cov­er­ing that being an adult means mov­ing far­ther away from their par­ents’ per­cep­tions and ways of doing things. 

This process involves explor­ing, chal­leng­ing, and shift­ing core beliefs. 

How­ev­er, most teens do the nor­mal, teen thing. They replace their par­ents’ struc­tures and ways of doing things with those of their peer group. 

One teen and I were talk­ing about sex and dat­ing, and as we dug in, she said “I can’t talk to my par­ents about this stuff.” I asked her what she did do. “I ask my friends,” was her reply.

Now, I heard that and I won­dered: “What could anoth­er 15-year-old pos­si­bly know about that or any oth­er adult top­ic?” But I held my tongue and offered to lis­ten and to answer any ques­tions she chose to ask.

All teens do this little dance of trading one fervently held view for another equally rigid belief. I want them to grow up–to get over thinking there is a “right” answer, or that there is something they “should” be doing.

Odds are, though, most won’t. Not with­out help. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most folk sim­ply shift from one set of rigid beliefs to anoth­er as they try to find the “cor­rect list” — the per­fect list of “shoulds” — with­out ever ques­tion­ing the premise, “Why do I think I (or oth­ers) should do anything?” 

We don’t question ourselves because we believe in “shoulds.”

As kids, we hear stuff like, “You should be ashamed of your­self.” Par­ents do this to us to get us to fit in to their pre­con­ceived notions of how we “should” behave. 

The only thing we real­ly learn is that big peo­ple think that there is a uni­ver­sal list of “shoulds” that coin­ci­den­tal­ly match­es what those big peo­ple already believe. 

Much of rela­tion­ship dis­tress is a direct result of hav­ing a “should list” about how a “hus­band” or “wife” or part­ner (or ex!) ought to be behav­ing. Each per­son grasps onto their list as if it is real, as opposed to a con­struc­tion of their imag­i­na­tion and per­haps a cre­ation of our culture. 

Then, in their igno­rance and audac­i­ty, they com­pare their part­ner to their made-up list, find the part­ner lack­ing, and try to force or manip­u­late them to change.

All of this happens because we give more power to an imagined list than to the person standing right there in front of us.

What get­ting over our­selves and our need to con­trol oth­ers gains us is a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what’s actu­al­ly happening. 

If I can’t relate with some­one, it’s not because they are vio­lat­ing my list of “shoulds.” I don’t like the way they are behav­ing … wait for it … because I don’t like the way they are behaving.

That’s not to say that people don’t screw up. It’s about whether I think I have the right to attempt to impose my “shoulds” on another.

So, say I’m in a high­ly func­tion­al rela­tion­ship, and I bump my nose against what my part­ner is doing. As I con­sid­er the issue, but before rais­ing it, I take the time to lis­ten to what I am hurt­ing myself over — to what I am “object­ing to.” 

I ask myself, “Do I think there is some way my part­ner “should” be behav­ing that I can let go of?” 

If I tru­ly believe that rais­ing the issue would ben­e­fit the rela­tion­ship, I would say, “Here is what I am notic­ing that you are doing, and here is what I am mak­ing of it.” 

This is not a request for my partner to change. This is a statement of my observations, which others can take or leave. 

In this high­ly func­tion­al rela­tion­ship, you and I would have an under­stand­ing that when one of us com­ments in this decid­ed­ly neu­tral way, the recip­i­ent will respond by look­ing at what they are doing–that “you” will not sim­ply dis­miss what I am say­ing as being “my issue.” 

In oth­er words, my com­ments would­in­vite you to look at your­self.

And this would happen in both directions, obviously.

The point of com­ment­ing is to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment of explo­ration for both par­ties. It is not to get the oth­er per­son to fol­low one mode of being (one list of “shoulds.”)

Choosing this way is self-responsible and self-directed.

Com­par­ing a per­son to an abstrac­tion and then try­ing to get the per­son to change to fit the abstrac­tion sim­ply does not work. When I see, over time, that what I want and what I am get­ting does not match, I have three choices,

• I can accept the dif­fer­ence with­out com­plaint, and sim­ply be curi­ous, or
• I can whine, manip­u­late and try to con­trol the per­son into “chang­ing,” “see­ing the light,” “wak­ing up,” “get­ting it,” “read­ing the right book” — and make life mis­er­able for them until they do, or
• I can leave. And by this I mean actu­al­ly leave — many peo­ple leave, and con­tin­ue to try to manip­u­late their ex into “behav­ing” — all for the “right” rea­sons, of course!

The mid­dle option is, by far, the most common. 

My favourite, direct from the mouths of clients: “I’ll treat you with respect when you stop drink­ing.” “I’ll stop drink­ing when you treat me with respect.” Both are indig­nant­ly supe­ri­or in their “right­ness,” their, “every­one knows how you should be behaving-ness.”

And, of course, nothing changes.

This week, notice your “shoulds,” your “Gee, your life would be bet­ter if only you would change to make me hap­py” list. Notice your, “I just don’t get why you don’t change. It’s self-evi­dent” com­ments. Find your own place. Stop. Breathe. Look at your options. Then, work toward choice 1 or choice 3.

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