THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN SHOULD AND MUST

   The similarities between life and roads been drawn upon for centuries. Robert Frost took the one less traveled, Vladamir and Estragon waited for Godot on the side of one, Jesus rode a donkey over a palm-covered one, and now we have another one, the crossroad of should and must. 

   Should. A poorly constructed command. My aunt (a well known psychiatrist in the North West) calls should a shame word. Saying "should" is the way that others shame us in to doing what they want. To take that a step further, it is the way that we shame ourselves for not acting in the way we perceive society wants us to behave. Acting off this word is detrimental to our own mental health and success in the real world. If we intend to live happy lives we not live by the Creed of Should, but rather the Calling of Must.

   Must. A succinct phrase that creates an ethos of determination. The word "must" behaves in a manner that leaves the listener of said word wanting to achieve something. However Elle Luna uses this word in her article The Crossroads Between Should and Must as a synonym for "calling" so to incorporate both meanings we will just refer to it as the Calling of Must.

   Deciding the difference between these two can be very difficult if you are unwilling to ask yourself the very real questions about what makes us who we are. As Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." What Samuel Clemens failed to point out is that finding out "why" is the hardest thing we have to do on this earth. And sometimes when we do, we are wrong. I firmly believe that Adolf Hitler's "why" was not to create a master race, but he did. And the truly frightening thing is that we might be wrong about our Calling of Must and not figure out that we were actually just calling the Creed of Should our entire lives. We aren't all as lucky as Miss Luna to have dreams or visions to tell us our Calling of Must and while no one reading this will be as far off as Hitler was (hopefully) we can only be certain that what we want is really our calling if it answers all the questions we ask ourselves at night.

   All in all, we may have our white rooms we have to chase or we'll have to settle for our own Mavericks, but whatever the case the moment you start shaming yourself because of what others pretend to want is when you stop living. Do not die to society but rather live by your own Calling of Must.