Should vs. Shall

If there's one word I can't stand, it's should.
You come straight home from work on a freezing night to snuggle on the sofa but you really should have gone to the gym. You sit back watching some trashy reality show but you really should have done some cleaning. You go straight to bed but should have read the Bible, you should have called your Mum, should have done some ironing, should have text your friend, should have should have should have!!

The thing is, it's not anyone but myself issuing these 'shoulds' out. I tell myself I should do plenty of things, don't and then sit there feeling guilty for it.
I suppose we get these expectations from the environment around us, from what those we love do with their time, how they carry on their business and then think we should be doing the same. We then start to live under obligation to fulfil these.

One thing I really enjoyed when I finished full-time education was not having the 'shoulds' of study over me. When I got home from work, there was no studying that should have been done, no revision, no extra reading...I felt free! That lasted all of about 5 minutes before all other shoulds appeared. As a newlywed, they became home-based; cleaning, cooking, mending, working out, hosting - again, all my own expectations.

Essentially, should is a simple past tense of shall. However, shall doesn't seem to have the ugly heaviness of should, it seems full of hope and carries a much lighter sentence. "I shall go and clean the toilet" vs. "I should go clean the toilet"…puts it into a whole new light! I shall because I want to and I will, as opposed to I feel I have to.

I imagine the key to breaking this cycle is to have a good old think about what expectations we feel people have of us, (or most importantly we have of ourselves), why we feel we are under obligation and why we are shoulding and not shalling!

I should really do this...argh! I shall do this...

Trev x