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Don’t Let Others Tell You What You “Should” Do
You know what is best for you, and their “shoulds” may not be it
If there is one thing I wish I had learned when I was younger, it is that no one but you knows what you should do.
This includes your parents, the church, your spouse or partner, your friends, random strangers who like to poke their nose in other people’s business, or authorities and “experts.”
There are many times that we get advice from others that is sound, and when we decide to follow it we get good results. The confusion comes when we think that others know best and we spend our lives trying to follow all the mandates that come along with the word “should.”
If we never developed a strong trust in our own judgement, and our own sense of what we need, we are especially vulnerable to the voices that are out there telling us what we should do. Even if we do have a stronger sense of self, our society is set up to make us question our own wisdom, and defer to others to tell us what we should be doing.
This can send us running from one authoritative voice to another trying to find the answers to life’s most pressing questions. Who am I? What is my purpose in this world? What would make me happy? What am I supposed to do with my life? How am I supposed to be in…
