On "Should"

I was five years old the first time I remember hearing it. “You should be able to this!” I couldn’t fold paper straight, and thus I had to stay in at recess folding, folding. And a few months later, I heard it again. This time, I couldn’t bounce a ball, and I had to stay inside trying to bounce, watching the other kids run around outside kissed by the California sunshine. Guess what? I still can’t fold straight--I would be a very bad employee in a clothing store, and I’ve never been particularly good at basketball, although I eventually learned to dribble. (The you-have-to-stay-in-everyday-until-you-can-do-this rule was eventually broken when it became apparent it wasn’t going to happen.) “Should” is a straight line and all people (or at least those I like!) are curvy. Who drew this line, created this standard?

“Shouldn’t” can be just as binding. I was seven when I first started playing music, and I picked up a plastic recorder and just knew how to play. “You “shouldn’t” be able to do that?” But I could, and I did, and it was joyous. Had I listened, had I been less stubborn, would have set the instrument down? And teachers had previously said I had no hand-eye coordination because I could not fold or dribble—how then could I play music with such ease? No, I was not a straight line, nor am I one now.

“Should” and “shouldn’t” are words that cause the body to shut down, and they make the mind start to doubt—to doubt ability, to doubt reality and even to doubt one’s own personal truth. It seems that too often we identify and define a person by their lacks rather than their myriad of different parts; in doing so, we put them in a prison—this is what it is to be person, and you should be this. Further, to see people only by their actions and abilities (and all to often lack thereof) rather than feeling a whole person robs us of the most incredible part of being human.