I love Penelope Trunk. She is such a real blogger, and she mirrors much of my thoughts as I go through life. And today her blog post brought me back to my topic of choice.

Today She wrote (edited to fit my blog):

I confess that I don’t feel like I’m working to my potential. And it makes me feel sick. I know the signs. It starts with me not being able to cope with my to-do list. It all looks too overwhelming. So I scale things back: I take out everything that has to do with …

The next stage of not living up to my potential is that I can’t read anything. I tried to read the New York Times magazine cover story about fixing a marriage. I can’t open it, though. The woman who is the author wrote about her own experience. F*^&. I should have posted about that.

Elizabeth Weil, from the New York Times magazine, will get a book deal from her piece. I will get a lot of comments from my paragraph. The comments will be: You should write more about that.

It’s true. I should. I should have a book deal, right? Don’t tell me that, okay? Because first of all I make way more from this blog than I would from a book, and I hated writing my last book. But I worry that maybe I should have another book because I won’t feel like I’m a real writer until I have a book New York Times book reviewers fawn over.

Should is a dangerous word. Someone once told me there is no word for should in Spanish. Is this right? Surely, though, there is a Spanish way to say I feel like crap because I’m not living up to my potential. After all, Spanish is the language of Catholic guilt. Should is the American way of putting ourselves down in the name of the need to impress other people.

I should be starting another company. Here’s why: I can’t stop thinking of companies.
I have a community that is always receptive to my ventures, and I have tons of connections into mainstream media where I could market whatever I come up with.
Instead of all of that, I am homeschooling.

Oh. Please. Please God of Editorial Decisions stop me right now from writing about how sick I am of my kids. Let me write something poetic about the joys of parenting.

As a whole, the job is enthralling and rewarding and full of joy. But day to day I could cry. Day to day I think, “All my interesting friends are sending interesting emails today and having interesting meetings.”

My kids have such fun days. They are my dream days. Private lessons in everything they are interested in. Reading for hours each day. Wake up with mooing cows, go to bed with star-filled skies.

If I really hated this life, I’d be changing it.

But all I want to do is write. I don’t feel like I should write, I feel like I have to write or I will die.

So the stuff I think I should do. I’m not doing it because I don’t need to, I guess. I guess I’m blogging because I need to.

So this is what I’m telling you: There is no should. There is no living up to your potential. There is just doing your life. You can’t do someone else’s life.

If we know our goal, and we know our life, and we are working toward it, then we never talk about our shoulds.

So maybe I can just focus on a single goal. And maybe all I need to do is write this.

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I would be truly surprised if this post does not ring true with many of us. Sure we don’t all want to be writers, but if you changed the wording, put some of your idols, some of your passions in there, could this actually be you speaking?

Maybe you think you SHOULD be a better photographer?

How about a better manager? I can assure you there are a lot of SHOULDS out there that relate to managing people, engagement, etc.

How did our lives become work? Last night I was reading DRIVE by Dan Pink. And he described this situation as a Sawyerism… (from the book about Tom Sawyer).. Remember when Tom had to paint the fence? That “work” did not appeal to him, he didn’t want to do it… Suddenly he was inspired, when his friend came down the street… “What ya Doing?” asked his friend. “Painting the fence, I enjoy it but you wouldn’t like it”… By the end of the conversation, Tom had his friend painting the fence and giving him an apple for the “privilege” of doing it. By the end of the afternoon the entire neighbourhood of kids had painted the stretch of fence three times over. Funny…

When you read books about motivation, the author always looks at this story as a demonstration of intrinsic drive. How if you make something “look” fun or inviting, people will be willing to challenge themselves to do it. But if you add a monetary value to it, or a reward.. People start looking at the activity as work. Artists who are paid, create work that is less inspiring. Advertising teams, create less effective advertising and marketing schemes when the outcome is more reward based…

How come no one notices the sweet simple truth that….

Tom missed out! Yes, he had his grin on and walked away knowing he didn’t have to do a stitch of “work”, but was it really work?? Or was it really fun?? Afterall, 12 kids did the job no complaints, heck some even paid him for the privilege.

What are we missing out on because we think everything in our life is a “SHOULD”?
Why can we not look at what we have with pure joy?

In actuality, I have what many people would view as a multitude of “jobs” in my life:

* Wife
* Mother
* HACCP Specialist
* Western Area Synapse Co-Chair
* BC Regional Synapse Chair
* Creative Team Member for Digital Scrapbooking Site
* Advertising Manager for a Digital Scrapbook Designer
* Sister, Daughter
* Christian/Anglican/Catholic

The list grows daily. But when I sit back and think it through most of those things are not really jobs.

Yet sadly, like Penelope, there are days when I can honestly say “As a whole, my life is enthralling and rewarding and full of joy. But day to day I could cry. Day to day I think, “All my interesting friends are sending interesting emails today and having interesting lives.”

Why can I not be content with what I have? I know I have friends and relatives that look at my life and wish theirs could be as interesting… I have people sending me messages saying they wished they would take their kids on as many outings, or scrapbooked as wonderfully as I do, or baked yummy food, or loved their job as much as I profess to, or be as outgoing as I pretend to be, or as organized as I manage to fool people into thinking I am… So why do I need to feel the need to motivate myself to strive for more?

Maybe Penelope is right:

If I really hated this life, I’d be changing it.

Maybe I need to change my thoughts and realize that: There is no should. There is no living up to your potential. There is just doing your life. You can’t do someone else’s life.

Clare Booth Loose says “A great man is a sentence”. Ask yourself what is your sentence. (Look up the You Tube Video: Drive, Daniel Pink – 9781594488849).
Having that one sentence focus statement may help to convince you that your life is not all work. That what you are doing right now is good enough. Maybe, if we know our goal, and we know our life, and we are working toward it, then maybe we may not feel the need to continually talk about our SHOULDs. All a SHOULD can do is discourage us from reaching our true potential, and convert those items we truly love into work.

And in the end who wants to miss out on all the fun, like Tom did?