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Find on your own your Shoulds, Musts and Oughts | Part A’

Find on your own your Shoulds, Musts and Oughts | Part A’

There is a neat little word, coined by Albert Ellis, for the tendency to incorporate shoulds into your life. It is “musterbation”.You are “musterbating” whenever you find yourself behaving in ways that you feel you must, even though you might prefer some other form of behavior. Karen Horney, the brilliant psychiatrist, has devoted an entire chapter of Neurosis and Human Growth to this topic, and she titles it, “The Tyranny of the Should.” She comments:

The shoulds always produce a feeling of strain, which is all the grater the more a person tries to actualize his shoulds in his behavior……Furthermore, because of externalizations, the shoulds always contribute to, disturbance, in human relations in one way or another.·

Do shoulds determine much of your life? Do you feel you should be kind to your collegues, supportive of your spouse , helpful to your children and always work hard? And if at any time you fail in one of these shoulds do you berate yoursell, hence take on that strain and disturbance to which Karen Horney alludes above? But perhaps these are not your shoulds. If, in fact, they belong to others and you have merely borrowed them, then you are musterbating.

There are just as many should-nots as there are shoulds. These include: you should not be rude, angry, foolish, silly, juvenile. lewd, gloomy, offensive and scores of others. But you don’t have to musterbate. Ever. It’s all right to be lacking in composure, or to not understand. You’re allowed to be undignified if you choose to. No one is keeping score on you, or going to punish you for not being something that someone else said you must be. Besides, you can never be anything that you don’t want to be all of the time. It’s not possible. Therfore, any should will have to produce strain in you, since you won’t be able to fulfill your erroneous expectation. The strain does not result from your undignified, nonsupportive, indiscreet or whatever behavior, but from the imposition of the should.

 

Etiquette as a Should

 

Etiquette is a beautiful example of useless and unhealthy enculturation. Think of all the little meaningless rules you’ve been encouraged to adopt simply because an Emily Post. Amy Vanderbilt, or Abigail van Buren has so written. Eat your corn on the cob this way, always wait for the hostess to start before eating, introduce the man to the woman, sit on that side of the church at a wedding, tip this, wear that, use these words. Don’t consult yourself; look it up in the book. While good manners are certainly appropriate – they simply entail consideration for other people- about ninety percent of all the etiquette guidelines are meaningless rules that were composed arbitrarily at one time. There is no proper way for you; there is only what you decide is right for you—as long as you don’t make it hard for others to get along. You can choose how you’ll introduce people, what you’ll tip, what you’ll wear, how you’ll speak, where you’ll sit, how you’ll eat, and so on, strictly on the basis of what you want. Anytime you fall into the trap of “What should I wear”, or “How should I do it”, you’re giving up a chunk of yourself. I’m not making a case here for being a social rebel since (hat would be a form of approval-seeking through nonconformity, but rather this is a plea for being self- rather than other-directed in the everyday running of your life. Being true to yourself means being devoid of the need for an external support system.

 

 

Part B’: http://www.lecturesbureau.gr/1/the-folly-of-shoulds-musts-and-oughts-part-b/?lang=en

 
Your erroneous zones
Wayne dyer

 

Image: ‘Pentateuque’ by Fabien Merelle (http://www.designboom.com/art/pentateuque-by-fabien-merelle/)



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