KEW Episode 63: The Two Types of Shoulds

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I recorded this episode after replying to a YouTube comment about good and bad types of change (Episode 61: Change is Hard, but Resisting Change is Wrong). The commenter made a good point that sometimes we change in a bad direction instead of making a positive change.

I agreed but in doing so realized I had a bigger point buried under that. Perhaps another assumption I had failed to realize or express. Which is that I believe the Are motivation is essentially driving GOOD change, and that many SHOULD motivators drive a bad kind of change. But an even BIGGER point was buried even deeper about good vs. evil.

I believe that humans are essentially good. We start out good, and any evil we develop is learned through Should type processes. This might have to do with a book I just finished about whether or not humans are essentially good or evil called Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman. Rutger argues that we are essentially good, and I’m on that side – at least for now.

So another assumption I have made, perhaps subconsciously, with respect to the Are vs Should Problem is that living from our Are is on the good side whereas living from the Should is leaning toward evil.

HOWEVER, the commenter ALSO made me realize that some shoulds are better than others. Sometimes we tell ourselves we Should eat better, be nicer, be more responsible, get a better job, or whatever. Sometimes these shoulds HELP us move forward.

So I had to break this down a bit:

Ares are intrinsic motivations that come from within us and generally encourage us to be better and come from a good place.

Shoulds can be intrinsic, or appear to be, OR extrinsic.

Intrinsic shoulds are mostly Are, but have some external motivations sprinkled in. Kind of like when I internalized my dads job motivation by conceding that I should change my major so that I could get a job. I internalized an external should, made it my own, and was fooled into thinking it was an Are. And, arguably, it was as it did achieve the goal. Of course, in HINDSIGHT I choose to see that as an extrinsic should that became internalized.

So most Shoulds come from external sources and can be misleading, bad, and downright evil. Shoulds serve to destroy the Are, but the degree to which this is intentional can vary from close to none to entirely.

So three basic choices: Are, Should, Internalized Should that is confusing.

While discussing the multiple types of Shoulds in this Episode, as you will see (or hear), I started formulating what I think will become the next phase of development in the Are vs Should Problem. I hit on the good vs evil elements already, but also posited whether or not we need to look OUTSIDE ourselves to better understand the Ares. I even suggest we learn to love people FAR outside our realm of attention. People that oppose our views or make us angry. I am wondering if we apply what we’ve discussed so far to people at opposite ends of the field if we might learn some new things.

In this episode I break way out of the box to introduce several new concepts that I think are related to future exploration. I started to incorporate the non-analytical parts, or somatic parts, of humans as mechanisms to fully understand our ares. I’m looking forward to seeing where this is leading us. I hope you will listen and share your thoughts.

Podcast audio download: https://pdcn.co/e/https://chtbl.com/track/CGDA9D/www.buzzsprout.com/530563/9178041-kew-episode-63-the-two-types-of-shoulds.mp3?download=true

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YouTube video: https://youtu.be/bhuVQ7wPfOE