The "Shoulds"

Note: It was not my intention to abandon this blog for four months. Whoops. Many apologies to my imaginary readers.

Most of us don't like being told what to do. It's human nature, right? That's probably why it's so hard to train small children into well-behaved adults (and, in some cases, adult children into less-childlike adults).

I don't like being told what to do, either. Oh, I can follow directions, and when I'm utterly clueless about a topic or am unsure about my abilities, I do want clear instruction from someone else. But I also have an independent streak, one that I'm not ashamed to have. When I was in fourth grade, I participated in the Mark Twain reading program. This is a Missouri program that basically provides a list of award-winning books in various categories, and then students read as many titles as they can until they meet a specified reading goal. If you complete the program, you probably got a certificate or something. We also got to go on a field trip and see some authors speak/get autographs, etc.

It may come as no surprise to you that I LOVE to read. Sadly, I read less now than I used to as a child and teenager, when I would crank out multiple books a week—and I'm not talking picture books or even "chapter" books like The Bailey School Kids that probably clocked in at around 50 pages. I mean regular-sized books.

However, it turned out that I HATED the Mark Twain reading program. Most of the books on the list, at that time at least, were older and didn't appeal to my fourth-grade mind. The books I liked to pick out to read were usually about teenage girls (hey, I was an already-pubescent 10-year-old, and who didn't want to be the cool girl in high school with the cute boyfriend?), who usually starred in fluffy genres that hadn't won any prestigious awards and hadn't made the Mark Twain cut. My school librarian would turn up her nose at any book I checked out that wasn't on the list. (At least she didn't go so far as to actually prevent me from checking out the more fun books, although I wouldn't have put it past her.) I struggled through the list as well as I could, but I stopped as soon as I met the minimum page count required to complete the program. Some of my peers kept going and won special honors (literally, their name being read at a school ceremony and probably another certificate) for the number of extra pages they read, but not me. I was one of the top students if not the top student in my grade, an avid reader who had to sneak her books in the couch cushions when my mother grounded me from reading—yes, seriously!—and yet I elected to not participate in the Mark Twain reading program my fifth grade year. I wanted to read what I wanted to read, dammit, and so that's what I did.

My mother, teachers, librarian, and other students explained this away with "Amy doesn't like being told what to read." It's still true today. And it turns out I really don't like people telling me what I should like. A-ha, there's that word: should.

I really, really dislike the word "should." Like any word, there are times when it is appropriate. But for some reason, it really raises my hackles when someone says to me, "Oh, you should ______." I first became conscious of this pet peeve a few years ago. My university's football team was playing their annual Fall Classic at the Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium, and a friend from college (we were both alums at this point) texted me and said "We should go to the Arrowhead game together."

Immediately, my hackles were raised. This was due to a combination of reasons:
1. I wasn't in the mood to hang out with this particular friend.
2. I didn't like football. At all. I still don't. (Fun fact: The one and only time I attended this Arrowhead game, I fell asleep. Literally, I took a nap in the bleachers.)
3. She didn't ask, "Hey, do you want to go to the Arrowhead game with me?" She said, "We should go to the Arrowhead game together."

Maybe No. 3 is nitpicking (and maybe No. 1 makes me sound like an asshole). But the words we choose to use hold a lot of power. It's one of my cheesy beliefs as a writer, a reader, and a human being. We should? You should? There's a difference in saying "You should not murder someone" and "You should watch 'Mad Men.'" Why can't it be enough to say "I really like the show 'Mad Men,' and I think you would, too. I recommend it!" instead of the whole "You should watch it"? Can't you understand that maybe I have no interest? That I think Jon Hamm is overrated? That I don't have HBO? That I don't want to pay for Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu or whatever the new streaming service is this week? That I think football is stupid but I don't want you to think that I think you're stupid for liking it, because we all have our interests, but I simply don't want to watch/go to the damn game?

Basically, "should" comes off as self-righteous, as judgmental, as pretentious. And sometimes those things (especially the judging aspect—yeah, it's not OK to murder someone, and it's totally OK to use "should" in that example) are appropriate.

But the everyday "shoulds"? They should disappear.