I woke up super early this morning, even by my standards.  Up and out of bed before 5:30am.  Now there are many things I probably "should" have been doing, like studying or cleaning or folding laundry but instead I made some coffee and plopped down in front of the computer to catch up on email and blog posts.  Maybe not the most productive use of my time but hey its my time so what do you really care what I do with it.  You don't.

So why do we care so much about what other people think?  That's really what we worry about when we think about what we "should" or "shouldn't" be doing...what other people will think.  I was asked this question not too long ago, what difference does it matter what other people will think?  I thought about it for a second and just shrugged my shoulders and said I dunno.  I'm the one in this body living this life, no one else can live it for me.  Oh sure alot of people can have alot of opinions of how I should or shouldn't live this life but what do I really care?  I am the one that actually has to live it.  Just like you have to live your life and why would you care what my opinion is about how you live it.  Its just my opinion which is likely based on my own issues, projections, judgements about something that isn't working in my life.

Maybe we are so focused on opinions of others because of how we were raised, this need to please our parents and make them proud.  Maybe its our society, we don't want to say or do something that someone else may not like.  We want to be like and be liked by everyone.  Ok maybe that's an overstatement but you know what I'm getting at.

In my opinion, which you can take or leave, we tell ourselves we should do this because if we don't what will everyone think.  Or we shouldn't do this because oh my what will everyone think.  Don't get me wrong, I am still guilty of worrying about what other people think.  I'm working hard not to and I am aware when I'm doing it.  That's half the battle right?

So instead of thinking I should or shouldn't, I'm going to start thinking about what I want and don't want.  I listened to a podcast the other day all about 'wants' vs 'shoulds' so this is fresh in my mind and not at all an original idea.

What if we all started focusing more on what we want to do vs what we feel we should do?  How different would our lives be?  How different would we feel about ourselves?

I'm going to give it a try and I'll let you know how it goes.  If you feel so inclined, you can do it do...only if you want...I wouldn't dare tell you what you should do!