Should I Or Shouldn’t I?

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Every once and a while I give myself a treat, so I’ll drive down the mountain (I live in the Rocky Mountains) to my favorite coffee shop and order myself one of those $5 or so coffee’s, my weakness is a large Caramel Mochaccino.

The owner is this beautiful lady from Australia, which gives me even more reason to visit that country and her coffee shop (that’s another article), anyway on her counter she has two cups and above the two cups there is always a different question of the day.

I know the reason why she does this, one is to get you thinking, plus most people will toss their change into the cup with the answer they agree with, and then Kendra, this is the owners name will split the tips among her staff (she keeps nothing).

Well today’s question was very simple, above one cup it said, “I Should” and above the other it “I Shouldn’t”

Kendra handed me my change and while I stood there watching my guilty pleasure being made by her, without hesitation and without a second thought I tossed my change into the “I Should” cup.

Maybe I should have paused for just a second because before I realized it I tossed all my change into the cup, so I just gave Kendra a $4 tip on a $5 coffee. I just paid $9 for my coffee… oh well.

While I continued to wait a gentleman behind me said I see you picked “I Should” and I said “Absolutely” and then he replied “I agree, how dull and uneventful a life it would be if you lived an I shouldn’t life”

I replied, “I would rather live an I should life because the stories you can tell are always better”

On my way home, I thought more about this, and I’ve always lived an “I Should” life, and I have some great stories and it also it reminded me of that Jim Carey movie Yes Man. I know it’s just a movie but look how different his life became.

The “I Should” life can and will give you an adventurous life; I know it has given me some great experiences (good and bad).

But just think of not living a life of “I Should”. You’re going to miss out on so much. And I think why many people don’t live the “I Should” life is because of fear.

Fear of failure, fear of rejection; fear of what people will think and on and on.

Personally, fear of rejection is nothing to me, so what, the worst anyone can ever say to me (you) is no… big deal, like I’m not ever going to hear that word again.

Fear of failure; who cares. For every failure you learn something (if you pay attention) and that failure will take you one step closer to success. So that’s a good thing.

I love to fail, which sounds odd, but I’m smart enough to know I cannot not succeed at everything, but I’m also smart enough to know that when a failure happens it has just made me that much more knowledgeable, powerful and brought me closer to my goals. As I said failure is a good thing if you're failing forward.

The fear of what others may think. This one I absolutely laugh at, and really don’t understand.

Why would you live a life worrying what others think, if you’re doing that you’re NOT living your own life you’re living a life by other people’s standards and ideas.

I could absolutely care less what people think of me, I live my life for me. I do not intentionally hurt or intentionally offend anyone. But I know it happens and that is not in my control. And I'll be the first one to step up and admit when I am wrong or apologise if I need to..

This is the real world and many people have skin as thin as an onion and no matter what you do these people have the opinion that you’re not living your life the way they think you should.

I have one reply to that… BITE ME!! This is my life not yours.

You know what the funny thing is? If people realized how little other people thought of them, they wouldn’t worry so much of what people thought of them.

My point to all this is; given the choice why not live a life of “I Should”, you’re going to have more fun, and like I said earlier “Just think of the great stories you’ll have to tell”.

Now go create some fantastic stories!!

I believe in you!!
Leo

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Recent Comments

57

Where in the Rocky mountains do you live Leo?

Banff spring and summer - Vancouver island winter

Love your post!!

Yes, we SHOULD!

Coming from Austria, I was very much raised along the lines of 'what will people think!' 'One doesn't...' When I married an Englishman, one of the reasons we moved to England was so that we could live life the way we wanted, and I could bring up my children how I wanted, rather than how all the relatives thought we should...

~ Isabella

Living on your own terms is the ONLY way to live

Hi, Leo, great post. Only pessimists accept failure as defeat. Optimists look on it as another lesson learned on the road to success. Good job Edison was an optimist. Hope you enjoyed your coffee.

As expensive as it was I sure did

Lol... you just described my life and the way I have raised my fully grown children. We all have enough stories to write several books. Great stories that ended really well and great stories that ended really badly.
No one actually cares about your life other than you so the answer should always be... why not ?
Totally epic post.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen

It took me a while to learn to live my life my way, and as soon as I understood that, my life got a whole lot happier

Some inspiring words for the morning for me. I am always wondering if I should or shouldn't, thankfully my decisions are usually that I should.
People get too caught up in what if's that they don't experience the right now's!
Have a great day - I hope the $9 coffee was well worth it :)

Just think of all the things people miss out on saying I shouldn't - and yep well worth the $9

Outstanding, well done, hudson

Thank you

Thanks Leo :)

You’re welcome

Thank you, great blog! I have a should I or shouldn't I question.

I would like to shift over a blog from one website of me to another. Should I or shouldn't I do that?

First off thank you, as for the switch - may I ask what has you thinking of moving things?

Are these 2 blogs within the same niche and/or theme related - so the content will make sense on the blog you want to move things to? If so you could if you think it makes sense.

Also don't delete the other blog, put a redirect on the URL so people can directed to the blog you moved things to.

Yes, they are both in the same niche, I take my own domain name into the super challenge of Kyle, and due to the enormous amount of work, my other siterubix bootcamp website is now dormant, and I like to shift over the blogs from that website to my own domain name, and eventually delete the siterubix. Is there a lesson about redirection? I really don't know how to do that

Hi Leo,

I have often ‘should’. You’re right, it makes for a great life story. Although this was never my aim.

Presently, I find myself in an office environment, pulling my best effort as a writer. It’s great. It pays well. But I find in offices, many people who’ve been in offices for a very long time, and in exchanging our life details over coffees, my ‘should’ choices sometimes seem ostentatious and unbelievable to people.

Unless I share photos.

OMG! You really did!

Yes, I did. :/

In these moments, I have sometimes alternated between feelings of embarrassment and wishing I had a more predictable and polite life path, or wonderment that I took the wiggly path I did so much for granted. I thought everyone had adventures of some kind?

So... why should my experiences seem unbelievable? There were plenty who shared them with me, so I know I’m not exceptional. And yet, they must seem unbelievable to recount if you are just sitting in an office. Here you are, right before me. You seem too real and ordinary to be that person.

But everyone can be that person, yannow? Just drop your coin into the other cup once in a while. Disrupt the mundane algorithms of your life. Just don’t go robbing a bank or anything silly like that.

Reading your post, I think if I could hope for any broad change to arise from using WA classes to further my creative and academic projects, it would be to have even more ‘shoulds’.

It can be hard for people to drop their coin in the other cup, getting outside your comfort zone can be scary. But scary can be fun.

Just like a rubber band if you stretch yourself a little further you will never go back to exactly to where you were.

And once you get the thrill of that stretch, why would you want to ever go back - keep stretching. Keep I shoulding

I had a phone call yesterday that tested the stretch, Leo. A discussion of possible work arrangements and amazing PhD scholarship offers for next year that could supposedly replace my very respectable day job. If I wanted it.

Would I consider it? On the one hand, a position that people dream about. People fight so hard for these opportunities. Such a steady job. I love it. On the other... this offer.

OMG this offer. I spent the evening reflecting on how elated that phonecall made me feel. I was surprised by how it made me feel.

And I worried and wondered - if what I already had was everything I wanted and worked so hard for... then why did the call make me feel so elated? Where is this feeling of excitement and optimism, despite the huge dip in income it would cause... the relative insecurities, of that offer... where is this good feeling coming from?

I’m still trying to rationalise it this morning. An interesting new door seems to be opening. But it’s a discussion the whole family needs to buy in to.

It’s definitely a SHOULD scenario.

Leo, you have a lot to give.

Thank you

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