The following is a section I cut from an old draft of INTROSPECT.

I’m inclined to say no. Not until you’re ready to handle such a heavy burden. As with weightlifting, carrying too much can hurt you.

“Should” is one of those words that seems fairly innocuous, but can end up becoming a very invasive part of your thinking. I’ve spoken with dozens of people over the years who are utterly tyrannized by the Shoulds in their heads. It’s possible to get so caught up in what you think you “should” do, that you lose all sense of what you really think, what you really feel, what you really want. Young people seem especially susceptible to this.

When you begin the journey of introspection, I highly, highly recommend that you experiment with suspending all Shoulds from your thinking and writing. If really necessary, you can always reintroduce them later. This might be difficult in the early stages, so it’s secondary to the principle of “just write as fast as you can and don’t worry about it” – you can then subsequently re-read your writing, highlight all of the Shoulds that crop up, and question them.

You’ll never have a shortage of people telling you what you Should or Shouldn’t do, how you Should or Shouldn’t be. Sometimes this messaging will be explicit, often it will be implicit.

I don’t know if it’s really possible to completely erase the word “should” from your vocabulary, or if that’s necessarily desirable. It can be useful shorthand sometimes. I’ll definitely be using it throughout this ebook. The point really is to let go of the coercive connotation of Should. 

Let’s work through an example. You might think that you should exercise more. That’s a very common thought that a lot of people have. “I should be healthier. My body is a temple and I am desecrating it. I should eat less junk and I should go to the gym more.” These aren’t intrinsically bad thoughts to have. The thing to do – and this will be a recurring motif throughout this book – is to examine how these thoughts feel. Do they actually motivate you to work out? Or do they mostly just make you feel bad about yourself? 

The crazy thing about a Should that you feel bad about is that it can actually lock you in stasis, and prevent you from achieving the very thing that you think you Should be doing. A lot of smokers think “I should quit smoking” – and this thought becomes a persistent, nagging voice in their head that makes them feel guilty and ashamed for smoking. Those feelings stress them out, which make them smoke more. Then they get angry at themselves, and feel helpless, which also make them smoke more.

I’m not saying that you’ll quit smoking the day you stop beating yourself up about why you Should quit smoking. But if this is a pattern of behavior for you, it’s very worthwhile to identify it. What Should you do about it once you’ve identified it? Nothing! Whatever you like!