Fuck Should

When was the last time you cried at work?

For me, it was just last week, and it was a good one. I’m talking tears, snot, hiccups, the works. In the middle of a weekend leadership retreat. In front of the CEO and the board of my biggest client.

In part, I cried because I had simply reached the limits of my ability to cope. Living with a torn ACL for a month and the physical and emotional exhaustion that entails had taken its toll. Rolling over in bed, getting into the car, making school lunches and generally trying to live a fully functional life with limited functionality had lead to a collision of the physical and emotional pain centres of my brain, and a 6am start for a weekend meeting was simply the last straw.

At least, that’s the simple way to explain it. The more complicated, but more truthful explanation is that I cried because of the word, ‘should’.

When it happened, the incident, I actually held it together pretty well to begin with. After bolting from the meeting, I even managed to get into an Uber and survive the 45 minute trip across town without too much public display of emotion.

Because that’s what we do, us women. We hold it together. It wouldn’t be right to embarrass the driver. Can’t make other people uncomfortable. Be nice. Think of others.

It was when I got home that the floodgates really opened. Possibly literally. I don’t know how tear ducts work.

And that’s what I mean about ‘should’.

I cried, not because of the pain and exhaustion, not really. I cried becauseI felt ashamed and guilty about leaving the meeting. I was worried I had made the CEO look bad in front of the Board. I was worried people would think I wasn’t committed or that I was flaky or not capable of doing my job. I cried because I should be over-achieving in my career, at the same time as being a perfect mother, a loving wife, an available friend. At the same time as managing a major injury that will be a test of my physical and emotional endurance over the next year, and which has had a crashing impact on my sense of identity and means of finding purpose and happiness in my life. I cried because I should be all these things, and when I’m not, it must mean I am failing.

Should is a word that women wear like a yoke around our necks. It starts, before we’re even aware of it, as a word that comes from the mouths of family, community, magazines, strangers. We hear it so often, that slowly and imperceptibly, it becomes our word, our voice that wags its invisible, disapproving finger and says, not “you should”, but “I should”.

Here are some of the shoulds that I have prowling around in my head at the moment, in addition to the ones I’ve just described:

• I should be cheerful all the time

• I should be thinner

• I should make healthier school lunches

• I should take better care of my fingernails

• I should have zero unread emails

• I should read more novels

• I should help everyone I see in need

• I should give more time to my volunteer work

• I should drink green tea instead of coffee

• I should use social media less

• I should do yoga more

• I should do my taxes earlier

• I should be more forgiving of difficult family members

• I should remember to return the kids’ library books on time

• I should have an immaculately tidy home

• I should look less tired

So. Many. Shoulds.

Is it any wonder that women are just so tired all the time? This word crashes down on us like a tidal wave, it holds us under and, when we kick and struggle to the surface (because we do), a new wave is there waiting for us. It is relentless, and blind to the fact of its own absurdity. Most frustrating of all, the nature of ‘should’ is conditional, meaning that the opportunity to finally succeed, is ephemeral — ever shifting and just out of reach.

This is because, while the ‘should’ might be said in our voice, it is, in reality, nothing like our word. It’s a word that is deployed by the world around us to enforce compliance. It’s a word that is about meeting other people’s needs.

By doing what I ‘should’ for much of my life, I won praise and approval and attention. Maybe even love. But has it made me happy? Nope. Getting a gold star gave me something that looks like happiness, but when you hold it up to the light, it turns to dust in your hand.

Real happiness looks much, much different to this.

So I say this to all of you:

FUCK SHOULD.

Yes, some shoulds matter. You should brush your teeth. You should be as kind to people as you are capable of today. You should pay your bills.

But beyond that, fuck it. People might gasp and clutch their pearls if you have dog hair on your sofa. They might brag about their empty inboxes and their ‘key wins’ and their 5am yoga routine. They might have beautifully manicured fingernails and little waists and stellar careers. People who care about such things wield ‘should’ as a weapon to defend their own priorities, but they don’t have to be your priorities. The amazing secret I’m learning is, that if you ignore ‘should’, it takes away its power.

I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been crying hot, mascara-filled tears into a plate of ham last week. Because it does mean disappointing people. But do you know what? They get over it. They get over it. And the ones that don’t weren’t worth all the effort to please in the first place.

So this is my choice. I choose to be less perfect. I choose not to maintain the illusion that it’s all achievable, all the time, because that makes me complicit I the lie. I choose to brush my teeth, to eat peanut M&Ms in the bath instead of doing the vacuuming, to make mud pies instead of baking more fucking cupcakes for the school bake sale. I choose to be pretty nice to most people except when I don’t feel like it, and to help those around me to understand that I am more than a series of obligations.

I choose to say ‘fuck should’ way more often.