“I should go do my homework.” “I should get an internship.” “I should go to sleep earlier.”
There’s something inherently false about the word “should.” Somehow, it implies a broken promise before the promise is made. Dictionary.com, which is, of course, my go-to reference point, defines “should” as an auxiliary word that means “must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety or expediency)."
And it’s true that whenever someone uses the word “should,” the action immediately takes on the burden of duty. “You should join this club!” Should I? Now I’m not just joining because I want to join the club –– now I’m joining because I feel that sense of duty, and that makes me feel resentful. It’s not just something that I want to do, it’s something that I feel an obligation to do. And, ironically, that makes me even less likely to actually do it.
“I should do my homework.” Well, yeah, I knew that the entire time. The only reason I would ever feel the need to say this out loud is if I’m pointing out that I know what my duty is, but I have no intention of carrying through with it. If I was planning on actually starting my homework, I would say, “I’m going to do my homework.”
Little words hold a lot more weight than one would expect. Maybe it is just a word, but words express thoughts, and thoughts dictate action. As George Orwell once wrote (although to be completely honest, I only know this quote because my RA had a poster of it in the hallway, not because I’m a casual reader of Orwell’s essays), “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
The thing about the word “should” is that it also leads to complacency -- when you acknowledge the fact that you do have a duty to do something, you feel like you’ve accomplished more already. Peter Gollwitzer, a psychology professor at NYU, conducted a study on New Year’s Resolutions and found that the more people you tell about your goals, the less likely you are to achieve them. Merely by spreading the word, you feel a sense of achievement even though you’ve done precisely nothing. That’s the same thing that the word “should” does.
The word “should” is a crutch –– it’s what could be, but won’t be, in just six letters. “I should donate money sometimes (but I won’t).” “I should exercise more [but I won’t].” How can we fix this? Well, if you don’t plan on doing something, then just don’t do it. Saying “should” only sets you up as an unreliable person who doesn’t follow through, a person who is satisfied with living their life through potential instead of action.
The word is completely replaceable. “I’m going to do my homework.” “I’m going to try for an internship.” “Hey, come check out this club, I think you’d like it!” The sentences all mean what you want them to mean, but the negative connotation is gone.
Although small and perhaps seemingly insignificant, individual words hold great psychological powers and should never be underestimated.
