The Word "Should" and Happiness
The best plan is to use the word “should” as little as possible.
Every time you use the word “should” something special happens, you start to tell a story about the past or the future.
An example of a story of the past is, “I should have joined the football team”. What has happened here is that in your mind you begin to imagine a false past. This false past is built upon many assumptions, one of which is that you would have been happier if you had joined the football team. There is no way of knowing if you would have been happier on the football team. Perhaps when playing football you might have also broken your leg, but you do not think of this additional negative possibility.
An example of a story of the future is, “I should read the newspaper every day”. In your mind you begin to imagine a false future. You imagine how happy you would feel if the future turned out exactly as you describe. Generally this is goal-setting behavior and is no problem, however there can be pitfalls. The pitfalls are:
- You overfocus on how much happier you would be once the goal is achieved. Happiness is generated internally, and is not necessarily the result of external acquisitions. You can be happy right now. The problem is that you might not give yourself permission to be happy until you achieve your goal.
- You do not create an actual goal. You might mentally commit yourself to “reading the newspaper everyday” yet not create an action plan to achieve your new goal. You need to establish a string of next actions and insure periodic reminders are present to keep you on track. If you do not create an actual goal, you will be subject to worry, uncertainty and self-blame.
