Great Throughts Treasury

"If you want to know Must, get to know Should. This is hard work. Really hard work. We unconsciously imprison ourselves to avoid our most primal fears. We choose Should because choosing Must is terrifying, incomprehensible. Our prison is constructed from a lifetime of Shoulds, the world of choices we?ve unwittingly agreed to, the walls that alienate us from our truest, most authentic selves. Should is the doorkeeper to Must. And just as you create your prison, you can set yourself free."

"Must is when we stop conforming to other people?s ideals and start connecting to our own ? and this allows us to cultivate our full potential as individuals. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or guarantees, and in so doing, to say yes to what Joseph Campbell called ?the experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.?"

"Must is fantastic, and Must is just on the other side of Should. Should is this world of expectations ? it's like a camouflaged force. That's one of the tricky things about Should ? it can kind of creep in there when you're not looking. It's easier ? it's this invisible force moving against us [and] it often comes very early on in life. It can come from the time into which we're born, the society or the community into which we're born, the body into which we're born... It can be a lot of different things that happen early in life [which] really take on that trajectory ... and have us often running a different race than the one we were intended to run."

"Choosing Must is the greatest thing we can do with our lives."

"How often do we place blame on the person, job, or situation when the real problem, the real pain, is within us? And we leave and walk away, angry, frustrated, and sad, unconsciously carrying the same Shoulds into a new context ? the next relationship, the next job, the next friendship ? hoping for different results."

"The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion (book title)"

"Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It?s that which calls to us most deeply. It?s our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires ? unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable. Unlike Should, Must doesn?t accept compromises."

"Should is how other people want us to live our lives. It?s all of the expectations that others layer upon us."

"There are two paths in life: should and must. We arrive at this crossroads over and over again. And every day, we get to choose."

"When we choose Should, we?re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful."

"Writing a book is like trying to wrap your arms around a giant Redwood tree. It?s just too big. Having a morning routine helped me complete the task of writing a book, and now it's the foundation of my daily practice."