Shoulds, Shouldn'ts and What Is
Resting in the unfoldment
It’s not very often that I raise my voice in an attempt to prove a point (okay, okay—it's happening less frequently these days). But today, something unusual happened: two loud Nigerian men—myself included—found themselves on the phone, each trying, with increasing volume and frustration, to convince the other that they weren’t being heard. It was ridiculous, but during the call and after I hung up, it struck a deeper chord. The whole exchange got me reflecting on the subtle burden we place on experience—how often we demand that it should or should not be a certain way.
I hadn’t spoken to my uncle outside of the usual New Year’s pleasantries. This, of course, marked a shift from an older pattern—back then, we’d talk almost every weekend. So when he called out of the blue, it was to express his disappointment that I hadn’t been in touch. Instantly, I felt myself putting up a defense. His words landing like accusations—one I found as unwarranted as, ironically, what I believed his disappointment to be. And so we went at it for probably thirty minutes, volleying our versions of shoulds and shouldn’ts back and forth, like seasoned litigators who’d forgotten they are on the same side.
That conversation pulled me into a deeper reflection—on how easily we burden reality with our expectations. How quickly we decide that things should be a certain way, or shouldn’t be another. We’re constantly measuring the moment against an invisible script, and when life doesn’t follow it, we take it personally. But what if the moment isn’t wrong? I started to think about how the shoulds and shouldn’ts pull us away from really understanding the very moment that constantly bleeds in glorious unfoldment before us, overlooking what is actually unfolding.
In my situation, allowing him to fully express his disappointment, paying attention to the expression of his fear, disappointment, my thoughts, what was shared, my suggestions is what attending in presence looks like. Isn’t it really interesting how we spend enormous energy trying to bend life toward some imagined symmetry: how relationships ought to look, how responses should arrive, how our intentions must be understood etc. And when life doesn’t comply, we flinch, resist, argue. We look at what is and call it a mistake or most certainly, ignore it.
But what is doesn’t argue back. It doesn’t protest or defend its form. It simply unfolds—messy, unfiltered, unedited. The only tension arises when we insist it be otherwise. The more tightly we grip the shoulds and shouldn’ts, the more distant we become from the quiet wisdom of what’s already here.
What’s already here is already here— it could not have been any other way because if it could, it would have. So then we trust! We put on our trusty hat! We trust. Not trust that everything will go our way, but trust that the moment carries its own intelligence, even when it breaks pattern or expectation. It’s the willingness to let a call with my uncle be just what it was—two humans reaching clumsily toward each other, misunderstanding and all.
And in that rest, we find something surprisingly alive. The voices(of life) seem to soften. The scripts we hold so darly to loosens. The moment, however imperfect, reveals itself as enough—not because it’s ideal, but because it’s real. Because it’s here.
Contemplative prompts:
Could it be true that what should have been could not have been because it currently isn’t?
Am I certain that what didn’t happen was meant to happen?
Can I be sure that what didn’t occur was supposed to?
What makes me believe that the thing that didn’t happen was the right thing?
Is the belief that it should have happened grounded in reality—or in expectation?
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