“What should I write about this week?” I ask myself this question every single week leading up to my article deadline. I ask myself dozens of “should” questions all the time, actually. What should I eat, what should I do tonight, what should I wear, what should I say. Not “what do I want” but what should I. On the one hand, you could argue that these two are pretty much interchangeable in day to day decision making, but on the other hand, I would argue that it’s a reflection of the constant, looming pressure that you should always be doing something different, better or more important.
The concept of being told what you should be doing is probably foreign to none of us. It comes from our parents, our friends, television, magazines and the internet. There is no escaping it. As a writer, I always feel like I should be writing about something more important. I mean, there’s a war in Syria, France finally overruled the horrendously discriminatory burkini ban, Italy suffered a tragically fatal earthquake and I’m writing about what exactly? Word choice? It feels like being a serious writer means I should be writing about the most serious, relevant event plaguing the Earth. Of course, there is no one directly telling aspiring writers of the world “Hey, this is exactly, precisely, the only thing you should write about.” It’s more of an unspoken, indirect pressure. There is a sense of obligation to create content that is “important” in terms of subject matter as if that is the only marking of a successful writer. But I know that’s not true. I know that some of my favorite writers never touched on “bigger issues,” but I love them anyway. This underlying pressure takes on many forms. Like a magazine never actually says “you’re fat,” but headlines like “Learn how Cheryl dwindled down to a size 2 from a gargantuan size 12” leave little to the imagination. Or in college, the pressure liberal arts major feel to find a real job. Or even in high school, constantly comparing yourself to other kids to see what you should be wearing, what you should be into, who you should be.
Pressure also comes in a more direct format. Last night, I somewhat spontaneously attended a symphonic orchestra concert with a friend. The music was beautiful, but the most memorable moment of the night came from the young couple in front of us. The woman mentioned a discussion from one of her classes in which her professor said that younger people don’t appreciate classical musicians as they should, to which her boyfriend nodded in agreement and added that, and I quote, “People should really stop listening to that crap on the radio.” The thing is, neither one of them were giving off any snooty, high horse vibe. The words nonchalantly rolled off the tongue, no malice truly intended. It seemed as though they were just expressing their opinion, which was that their musical preference was better and other people should conform. In this case, I don’t think there’s any harm done. But we should be wary of how easily we follow up our opinions with the insinuation that other people should adopt them as well. You can understand the danger in telling a woman what she should or shouldn’t be wearing on a night out.
There’s no perfect way to quantify the value of having guidelines on what you should do versus the restrictions of what you shouldn’t do. Your mom telling you to go to bed earlier is probably a good idea. But your mom telling you that you should major in something you’re not interested, meh, not so much. Unfortunately, there’s no golden rule on who, what and when to listen to as you go about your life. You’ve just got to go day by day, make decisions you’re comfortable with, and hope for the best. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?
