Should Is A Warning Sign

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

—Psalm 18:16

We all have these weird rules about what we should love and what should make us happy and how things should work. Should is a warning sign, frankly. When you’re using the word should more and more often, it’s a sign that you’re living further and further from your truest, best self, that you’re living for some other set of parameters or affirmations that you think will bring you happiness.

Should never brings happiness.

During a particularly busy season, I felt like I should be happy because I was doing things I thought I wanted to do. When Mac was a baby, when he didn’t sleep through the night for almost a year, I felt like I should never complain because I had longed for him so badly. I didn’t let myself say I was tired and the math wasn’t working and I was losing my ability to love and taste and experience my life, because that felt like failure.

Until all at once, I realized that I didn’t care anymore about should.

I wanted a way of living that felt more like living and less like drowning.

And saying it out loud to myself was the first and most important step.