All of my life I was taught that I should do things. With time you learn that they don’t help you or anyone else.
For example, to be a good person you should always help and not hurt others. Generally a good rule, but the should in here makes it rigid and inflexible. There are times that you have to defend yourself, or defend others who can’t defend themselves, and sometimes that requires hurting others.
I am not advocating violence here. I am simply pointing out reality. When we load up other people with rigid should, we take away the nuance and intelligence that we need to respond to life.
In the past people who told me what I should do generally believed in black or white thinking. It was either this or it was that. I knew that was BS when I heard it. I knew that when the religion that I grew up said that non Catholics were wrong, that it was wrong. I felt that when LDS people said I was evil because I wasn’t LDS. I wasn’t any more evil than they were. When we start with absolutes, we make other people unreal and it isn’t helping anyone.
There are many should do things that we may not realize it all. Like a smart person always has to remember and have a solution. Or a woman always has to be beautiful and do ridiculous things to be acceptable and find love. If someone has told you that you should/must/obligation to do something, that is a sign that is BS.
Oh I hear you saying, but my faith or beliefs are so important to me. I choose what I want to do. Really? I doubt that. Unless you have had therapy, we all are pushed into doing things because we have absorbed it from our environment or it is a reaction to our environment. I am not gaslighting you here. You may have genuinely chosen it from a healthy sense of choice, but no one is free from compulsions from society and there are things that you didn’t choose that you think you did.
For example, I grew up in an place that was heavily LDS. Those classmates that I grew up with were programmed from the day they were born into the LDS faith just like any other faith. I don’t blame them for choosing the path they did. It is natural for them to make those choices. That wasn’t my path, and while some of them were lovely people, I didn’t want to go that way.
Now when someone makes a choice that is unexpected, bold or brave that is probably not a should talking. I saw many of my classmates internalize the subservient role that LDS women have. They are supposed to defer to their spouses, and many women wanted to defer to me growing up. I didn’t want that. I wanted someone who was an equal, not a slave. I knew their should was forcing them to behave in a certain way, and I couldn’t address that even though I had deep friendships, respect and admiration with them.
If you don’t want to do something because your heart, mind and spirit don’t want to do it, then don’t do it. Whatever little voice is telling you should do it is lying to you. That voice is your past, and your ability to choose is your present and future.