Live Happy
Joy Youell
SEO & AI Consultant and Speaker | B2B Marketer | Deep thinker, community builder, happy human
“Shoulds” are deadly.
I don’t mean: “I should write my LinkedIn newsletter more often.”
I do mean: “I invested X” (action, asset, etc.) “and Y should happen.”
Here’s why that line of thinking is a recipe for paralysis/defeat →
Two people
With the same background
In the same city
On the same day
Can do the SAME thing
And get different results
There’s probably some universal law of chaos or maybe string theory is a thing here, but what I just said?
That’s true.
You know it is.
Two people with the same qualifications, same background, even same hairstyle can apply to the same job and one will get it and the other won’t.
Your input does not singularly impact output.
The dogmatic stance of predictable outcomes will make you crazy.
It will make you jealous: I’m just as [talented, resourced, innovative], but THEY are getting the limelight.
It will make you impatient: I have the same [idea, invention, method] but THEY already have funding.
It will make you ungrateful: I have less than I should have.
People who think like this are, frankly, a bummer.
But beyond that, there is a more important reveal here:
This kind of thinking is a clue…
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… a clue that you think you are in control…
… that life is an arcade game…
…you swipe the card and you get to play…
…and if you play it right, you will win…
…but that is:
?Not.?
How.?
It.?
Works.
Maybe you do deserve more, faster, better (I’m not being snarky - you really may deserve it).
BUT
There is not some cosmic scale that leans toward equilibrium, rewarding the hardest workers and the brightest minds.
There IS
A thread of chaos that runs through reality.
Sometimes, that chaos means everything you think should happen — according to all metrics and logic and comparables — just doesn’t.
That can make you feel like giving up: “Am I in control of NOTHING in my LIFE!?”
As my husband would say: Bingpot (bingo + jackpot).
When you realize the answer to that question, a new chapter of your life begins.
A life where you aren’t obsessed with what happens.?
Because there really is no set “should.”
And that’s how you live happy.