What is > what should be?

Watching a TV show, I noticed how people see things how they “should” be (how they want things to be) and ignore the reality of how things are. That can only lead to frustration.

I’m not sure how Two Coreys ended up on my playlist but I decided to check out what was their season premiere. I guess  they fell out and they are working on putting their long time friendship back together. Some deep seeded anger and pain seems to be pulling them apart now. Their show sort of paved the way to me thinking about what “is” vs. what “should be”. Let’s see if I can coherently express my thoughts. Since you guys like relationship entries let’s take that as an example (but this could apply to anything).

Jack meets Jill. Jack and Jill have a platonic relationship, have fun when the go out…really good vibe. One day when Jill mentions she has a date, Jack realizes he’s jealous of her going out with other men. What Jack doesn’t realize is that she felt the same way about Jack (non-platonic feelings) and decided to see other people to help make those “inappropriate” feelings go away. Just hanging out they got to know each other on a different level than if they dated and a connection formed. You can insert a reason why the feelings are “inappropriate” (nothing illegal or immoral now):

Jack is Jill’s best friend’s brother.
Jill is his best friend’s ex-girlfriend.
Jack and Jill work together.
Jack and Jill have different (opposing) religious beliefs and their families would freak out.
Jack lives in Alaska and Jill lives in Aruba.
One of them is rich and the other is poor.
They are complete opposites of each other.

I could go on, but the “inappropriate” feelings go against what normally would be advised on what one “should” do given the circumstance. Jack and Jill never acted on their feelings because acting on them isn’t what they “should” do. If the feelings don’t go away (the circumstance does not change) why does “should be” overrides “what is” – the current situation?

Why should you care about what “should be”? How can what SHOULD BE (but isn’t) override what IS? The key in this scenario is that Jack and Jill didn’t act on their feelings and the feelings didn’t go away. That makes them (the feelings) real – they endure time. It’s not impulse, it’s not foolish emotion – so why not act on it?

If your parents want you to be a doctor, you tried going to school to be a doctor but in your heart you want to be an artist, if that desire doesn’t go away why not pursue being an artist? Because it is something you “shouldn’t” do?

If you want to move overseas but you would be leaving family and friends behind (you are advised you “shouldn’t” move out of the country because you would be alone), if you really want to move will the desire go away or will the desire get stronger? If it continues to get stronger won’t you become miserable if you don’t try?

If you try the relationship/being an artist/relocating/insert-whatever-circumstance-here and it doesn’t work out, you tried. You pursued it. You fulfilled a goal. You most likely learned something. Probably had some good times. The truth: the other situation wasn’t working either so what is there to lose?

The Two Coreys have a lot of “should be” going on between them that conflicts with what “is”. When I thought about it more, don’t we all have that to some degrees in our lives?

The question is: why do we let it stay that way?

Comments are closed.

You May Also Like