Should.
It’s tricky sneaky word.
Children should go to school. People should have clean water to drink. Criminals should face the consequences of their actions. We should protect the earth. Employers should pay a living wage. Communities should value diversity. People should be kind. Our house should be clean more often than not. My kids should spend less time in front of a screen. I should call my mother.
Should frames the world of expectation and ideal, at least according to the majority. Well, at least it frames the world of expectation and ideal according to those with power and privilege. In any case, somehow we decide what kind of world we want to live in and what kind of people we want to be and we come up with a fairly comprehensive collection of behaviours and principles that those within a particular society should adhere to in order to become that kind of world and those kind of people.
We end up with a society we can occasionally call civilized, with laws that we can sometimes call just, and with people who behave well most of the time. Not bad, all things considered.
Except that all things aren’t considered, and the ideal of should is seldom realized, most unfortunately for those with no power or privilege. In our evolving wisdom, we begin to realize that the value of should, more often than not, also frames the world of guilt and shame: the judgment of unmet expectation and unrealized ideal. If there is should, then there is also shouldn’t. And when one does (thinks, is, values) what one shouldn’t, guilt results. Centuries of institutionalized religion and the will to power has burned should (and its failure) so deep into our being that it is inescapable, unless our being is remade. [Topic for another post: The Church and Nietzsche – more in common that we think?].
Perhaps it is because of the devastating effects of guilt and shame that we now question the very premise of should. In the postmodern narrative of moral and cultural relativism, should has no place. There is only what is, not what ought to be. After all, who gets to decide what ought to be? It is what it is. And that should be a good thing, right?
It is what it is. The mantra of our time.
Reality exists only in the present and without expectation. No judgment. No ideal to strive for and therefore no ideal to fail at meeting and so feel badly about. Accept the moment. Become the moment. You are the moment.
I have been reflecting on last week’s post and the role of should. I think some of my struggle with finding that balance between self-care and self-centredness has to do with the role of should in my life. As an adolescent and younger adult, I found myself bombarded by messages of how I should look, what shape my body should take, how I should behave in mixed company, what I should think and say if I wanted others to like me. I believed the messaging that I should feel this way or that way in response to particular situations. I should respond in a particular way when faced with challenges. I should grieve a particular way and for a particular period of time. There are certain rules to abide by when thinking about what is good and true and right. The subsequent guilt that follows not meeting such expectations remains with me like a wart that just won’t go away no matter how much Compound W I put on it. I should have bought stock in Compound W.
These days the messaging is the exact opposite. Stop feeling like you should think or feel a certain way. There is no should. There is only what you actually feel and think. Don’t listen to the messages out there about what people think you should be. Just be you. You do you, I’ll do me, and we can all live happily together.
Except that we don’t.
These conflicting messages crash and clash in my brain. Another collision in this period of mid-life crises.
Maybe there is a role for should after all. Perhaps the problem with self-centeredness has to do with the loss of should. If there is no should, there is no expectation. If there is no expectation then there is no obligation or responsibility to anything outside of the self. If there is no responsibility toward the other, there can be no compassion toward the other. Shouldn’t responsibility and compassion and care count for something?
I know I need to learn to better balance the value I put on what others expect of me and what I expect of myself. I know I shouldn’t care so much about how others think I look. I know I shouldn’t fear the opinion of others as much as I do. I know I should be kinder to myself. I know I should strive to be a better person. Perhaps I should just try harder and have greater conviction in my desire to be a better person. But better according to whom? How do I know what better looks like? How does one live without an ideal for which to strive and without the expectation that such an ideal is possible? How does one live without purpose beyond the self? Isn’t that what living in community and in a common society is all about? Isn’t that what being a social creature is about. A community cannot function when the selves in it are only responsible to themselves. The self turned in on itself cannot see the other. Maybe there are different considerations to be made for individual should and collective should?
Whatever the answers are, clearly I don’t have them. But I don’t believe we can live together without should. Though I wonder how do we make decisions about should and shouldn’t and how do we live with those decisions without being overcome by the shame of should’s failure? Is will power enough to meet the expectation of should and rise to its ideal? Perhaps that’s a post for next time…
Tricky sneaky word is should.
Much thought, reflection, and inner turmoil in this piece Dana.
Keep looking for answers, and don’t give up on questioning.
Agree with Dick Hibma and will add that you are loved no matter what your answers become.
Especially on the morning following the American election, I am strongly missing the morality of a “community should”, or better yet, a “Community MUST”. We must care about our planet, our neighbours near and far, outside of our social circles, religious beliefs, cultural norms, gender expression, economic value, and financial worth. Love and compassion should win; humans already fight an unfair journey through life. I can’t overstate how much I am needing a world where empathy and compassion prevails.
Well put Lesley. Empathy and compassion fail so often and on such a massive scale. Without human obligation (must) we have no hope as a species, and our neighbours, whomever they are, will always be the objects and victims of power.