***Warning: well-deserved swearing ahead.

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You should write something that isn’t a sponsored post.

That was the general message.

The intention was good, but any time someone says the s word to me, the bullshit comes out of the cracks of my being and crawls all over my skin.

The stuff I think someone will connect with if I write it. The fawning, trying to fit in. The marketing angle of myself to be desirable to a certain audience of any type: co-workers, friends, family, a publication’s readers…

All life long, I’ve been the misfit, the one who people don’t get. So, when people offer up a should phrase, I generally interpret it as a helpful offering of how I can mold myself to fit into a crowd.

Guys, I’m covered in should. I reek of it. And it’s an awful stench. But the desire to fit in is strong, and so, slather on the should I do.

And so, this is pretty much the only writing that felt worth the posting—the only thing that felt authentic and like it was pulling on my heart to be let out: the admission of being absolutely slathered in shoulds coupled with the cognition that there are times in life where perhaps we are not meant to lecture or tout our wisdom.

There are times we are perhaps not meant to share our self-discovery for what we presume will be the benefit of another, and times that we should instead guard those discoveries for continued processing.

There are times to teach and do and expend energy, and there are times to pause, assume a state of higher presence, and learn.

For tonight, for now, I shower off just one or two of the layers of should weighing me down and take in the lightness that comes from the little sips of self I’m able to breathe in as I do.

So, here’s a reminder to me and to you: you don’t have to do anything. Even if you’re told you should.

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