Shoulds
/By Jason
You may have seen my post about regrets and moving forward earlier on Facebook. If you didn't, here it is:
"The trick, it seems, is learning how to turn regret into resolve."
In our lives we find it's so frequent that we regret actions that we took, or didn't take. We lash ourselves psychologically and verbally with the word "should". Saying things like:
"We should have done this..." OR
"I wish we hadn't have done that..." OR
"I shouldn't have done this..."
These are useless statements if they aren't coupled with action. They only create stress without providing a way out of that stress. We lack the power to change the past. Focusing on past mistakes is a sure road to low self-esteem. As a so-called perfectionist, it was a trap a fell into for most of my life.
This works in the future tense as well. I can't tell you how many times I've said or heard the word "should" in future context. "I should work out more" or "I should travel more".
These are just a different way of lashing yourself over the past. If you say you should work out more, this only means you're beating yourself up for how much you haven't exercised thus far. If you say you should read more, it just means you're angry at how much you don't read.
Honestly, does saying "I should" ever make you feel better about yourself? Does it ever lead you to actually taking the action? Or are you just setting yourself up for future regret?
One of the challenges with trying to travel is that it's so much more work than you think it will be. Imagine, if you will, how you feel after a week or two or intense (not sitting on a beach) vacation. The phrase "vacation from our vacation" is so common as to be cliche, so I imagine that most of you know what I'm talking about.
We left home just about six months ago, and have been on the move essentially ever since. This experience which has been so moving, informative, and spiritually satisfying has also been kind of like a full time job.
There are, at current, 7 started but unfinished blog posts waiting to be published. I get halfway there, and then I fail to finish them. The result is that most of you guys haven't seen peep from us in months. And as time passes and the drafts pile up, I keep piling the "I shoulds" onto myself. I should post more. I should update our images on Flickr. I should add things to Facebook.
As you can see, none of these thoughts have led me to post. They've just led me to feel bad about myself. Which leads to more piling up of obligations and commitments unfulfilled. It's a hellish cycle that leads to less and less productivity.
So today I'm deleting all the drafts. And I'll make the following commitment. I'm going to post more. There may be a bit of a gap in the record as our times in Spain and Morocco got little blog love, but hopefully we'll have a better record of our changes and lessons and experiences as we go forward.
This trip is the second best thing I ever did, and I want to share it with you.
This is me standing in a literal hole, not unlike the figurative hole of my failure to post on this blog.