There are several different ways we use “should”. We say: “I should give to charity”, “I shouldn’t spit on other people”, and “I have everything I want, I should be happier." These examples seem to vary in the origin of the obligation they demand – the first two external, the third internal. Actually they all involve a pressure whose source is external, but which is imposed on the self from the inside.
As an external pressure, “should” is like a straightjacket, a tool of self-denial. “I should be…” always implies “I should be how I am not.” As a reducer of self, it is one of the most damaging words in the our language.
But who is the real subject of this sentence? Who is this “I”? A Freudian might align this "I" with the Over-I (normally translated as the super-ego): the critical parent, the social norm. Lacan would elegantly sidestep the locus, asking instead, “For whom are you identifying with someone you are not?”
The “I” in “I should”, is not located in the self. “Should” is such a dangerous word because it stealthily imports a subject which is not really the agent. The agent, the I (Freud's super-ego) is not the self but the other. The “I” in “I should” is not really the self, not really “I”, but a projection of the other onto the self, by the self. Hence when you use the words “I should...”, you are substituting the other as the agent of your own life. Put another way, you are relinquishing living how you want, to live how someone else wants. Hence “I should be different to how I am” is self-denial. You might as well say “someone else is who I am”. Here self is handed over to the other to be justified externally. It is a clandestine transfer of power and a denial of self-worth.
Each time you think “I should be…”, you are importing a value which you do not naturally have. If you had it naturally, accessible to yourself without any external static, you would just say “I am” or “I must” or “I want.” In importing this value unnaturally, you show that you have not yet identified oneness-with-self. Instead, choices are coming for without: you are attempting to live someone else’s life. He who lives outside himself will always have some latent and uncomfortable sense of self-betrayal, at least a low-level anxiety, an existential guilt in which he can recognise that he denies himself but cannot locate this denial.
These imported values, this should-content, is set in another person’s, or society’s, register. If you aspire, unconsciously or consciously, to fulfil these values, these expectations, you will inevitably fail. This failure will not necessarily be caused by a lack of competence, but through category error. The should-content are expectations sourced from another set of experiences, another set of desires and forged by a potentially alternative value system. One’s own life cannot resonate meaningfully with this instrument. Anxiety comes from trying to locate the subsequent failure in the self, when in fact there is no failure at all. There is only self-denial, located in “should”.
Equally the voice of the critical person: “You should be different.” While this seems to be taking power from the other, it is a merely a projection in which the critical person is saying “I do not believe that worth can be located in the self. You should be different because I should be different.” Thus all criticisms of others are self-criticisms. As should-content is exported, it is reciprocally imported. It is well known that people who are critical of others are crushingly critical of themselves.
In most areas of daily life, people within the same civilisation share conversant values, so following your own values mostly corresponds with following society’s or parents’ value systems. Hence thinking “I shouldn’t spit on other people” normally doesn’t involve low-lying existential guilt and anxiety. Perhaps we use Kant’s Categorical Imperative, or some other a priori value mode to create values from within. It's not really important: trying to unearth a priority has always been the category error of philosophy – where things come from is not as important as that they come from somewhere: not all truths need justification, and a priority does not reveal itself to us when questioned.
For whatever reason then, most people within a given society share values, and hence are able to exist with seemingly external should-contents, like "I shouldn't kill my neighbour", without a sense of self-betrayal. These in fact, for whatever conditioned or a priori reason, come from within, not without. Most things are bad because we sense so from within, not because society imposes badness on them. In the cases where values are imposed from without, perhaps something like 'weight-loss is always desirable', we collectively know it to be wrong, do it anyway, and accordingly suffer under an element of collective anxiety.
Naturally, even within society, individuals' values are not completely homogeneous. There are many value-divergences between individuals within the same society, whether they're "I should watch less TV" or "I must pray five times a day". We tend to come up against these dilemmas at life-crossroads or crises. When given a new option we wonder "what should I really be doing with my life." Using “should” is a way to deny individual choice at a time it is needed most. Instead of asking ourselves “what should I do?”, our real inner voice is trying to ask “what do I really want?” If we relocate our solution back into the society’s murky fog of contradictory values, we beckon on an ongoing sense of failure.
Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, implies this with respect to writing. His querent searches outside himself for justification. He asks for Rilke’s opinions on his work, perhaps he has asked Rilke explicitly “Should I write?” Rilke responds:
You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself… Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity.
Instead of searching for an “I should”, Rilke counsels to simply know the “I must”. Act only from within, and disregard that which comes from without - in the case of the young poet, to be above reviews and praise. "Should" reveals that something is not coming wholly from within, or at least is not acknowledged as such. This is the content we do not need, and whose presence burdens our honesty and our self-worth.
If you are not sure about the truth or the meaning of what I have written here, test it and let me know. Try avoiding saying “I should…” and see how it feels. You may find it instructive, highlighting how much we all, without realising, locate our values outside of ourselves. It may also be liberating, giving you a new strength to take back those values and reclaim and rename your desires. Overall, it may allow you to read between the lines of what you really want.
Instead of “I should…” try saying for example:
“I want…”
“I will…”
“I’d feel better doing…”
“I might…”
or as Rilke suggests, “I must.”
Equally, instead of “you should…”, trying saying for example:
“you could…”
“do you want…?”
“some people think that…”
"most people..."
“it’s kinder to…”
I crushed my spirit over the last year, spending a long time feeling a failure for not enjoying a life I felt I was living in the shoes of someone who had themselves loved it (as I was led to believe). The possibility that this divergence of experience of the same place was in fact just a reasonable divergence of values, was hidden by my over-reliance on “should”: I said out loud "I should enjoy this because someone else did, someone else would be". I now see the self-contempt this sentence conceals, as I was telling myself internally: "I hate being me because I am not someone else", and "It's my fault that I am like me, and not like another". I was denying my self and losing contact with my core values, or even blaming these core values for my state. Instead of loving and following my values, they became an albatross around my neck. Now I realise - if you are not holding all the cards, you're in the wrong game.
Evolving out of “should” is one step towards not repeating self-denial, and for rebuilding an authentic “I”. Finding the “I must” amongst all the “I should”s helps construct authenticity and allows self-worth to grow.
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