Sometimes, when you read a new author, it’s like meeting an old friend. A kindred spirit. I would have loved Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile just as much if I had read it at age 12 as I would have when I read it in my late 20s. Too bad it wasn’t around when I was 12 or I might have had a head start.

Other times, it’s plain weird how much a person that you thought you’d detest echoes a lot of your own ideas. For me, reading Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Yourself was one of those times. Because of my introduction to Louise Hay, I assumed she would be fully of crazy ideas.

Sometimes she is.

But much of her writing resonates with things that I already know, things that I have already thought or experienced or heard from people I trust. Definitely a value-add (not just another retreat of Think and Grow Rich), especially by tying in physical health.

Anyway, this is the bit that caught my attention.

You see, I believe that should is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use should, we are, in effect, saying “wrong.” Either we are wrong or we were wrong or we are going to be wrong. I don’t think we need more wrongs in our life. We need to have more freedom of choice. I would like to take the word should and remove it from the vocabulary forever. I’d replace it with the word could. Could gives us choice, and we are never wrong.

Now. I disagree on her conclusions. We certainly can be wrong about things and it is in our best interest to Not Be Wrong about many things. Part of becoming wise is learning the right things to Be Wrong about.

(Louise fights dreadfully against the idea that there is absolute Truth in this universe, and that’s where we differ dramatically.)

We agree, however, on the word should. A while back, I wrote about why I think should is a dirty word.

Most of the shoulds in this world don’t have anything to do with bedrock Truth. They have to do with the part of reality that’s socially constructed.

  • I should go to bed early.
  • I should buy a house before I’m 30.
  • I should go to the doctor when I’m sick.

You don’t have to do any of those things. You could live a perfectly happy life without them.

When dealing with the shoulds, you do have to consider the consequences of your actions. I like Louise’s suggestion of the world could in that situation.

  • I could go to bed early. I could also go to bed late. It depends — when do I have to wake up tomorrow?
  • I could buy a house before I’m 30. But what happens when I already have student debt?
  • I could go to the doctor when I’m sick. I could also learn how to take control of my own health so that I get sick less often.

It’s a valid point. Switching from should to could places the choice squarely on my shoulders. I become the driver of the decision, rather than ceding control to whatever people or cultures built up the shoulds in my head.

It’s my job to filter my coulds through a moral and ethical framework, ideally one that I’ve deliberately considered and decided to take on.

I’ll be going through this book in more depth, filtering it through the Truth, to see how I can apply Louise’s ideas to my own life and healing. I’m optimistic.