From Should to Would
By Alan Cohen

My eight-year-old neighbor Mark keeps me on my toes. Mark asks
lots of questions, which I am sometimes tempted to dismiss as
childish. But when I think about them, I usually discover a profound
lesson.

The other day Mark asked me for a ride to the local grocery store
so he could buy some popcorn (he would live on popcorn if his mother
let him). I told Mark I could drive him there, but since I was going
on into town, he would have to walk back, a short hike he often takes.

Then Mark asked me, "What do you think? Should I go with you?"

"Whatever you like, Mark," I told him. "It's up to you."

"But what do you think I should do?" he asked again.

I thought about it for a moment, and I realized there was no "should"
about it. My opinion of what he should do was irrelevant. His decision
depended entirely on what he felt like doing.

"Do whatever you would like," I told him. "If you want to go, I'll be
happy to drive you. If you don't feel like going, you can stay home
and play video games or whatever you like. It's up to you."

This process went on for a few more rounds, until I was ready to
leave. Then Mark announced, "Okay, I'll go!" and he jumped into
the car with me.

After I dropped Mark off, I realized he was mirroring a part of
myself that tries to find out what I should do, when there is no
"should" about it only a "would." Sometimes when I am faced with
a decision, I try to figure out how the various options fit into God's
plan for my destiny. But God's plan for my destiny is happiness; if
something would truly make me happy, behold God's plan for my
destiny. Instead of asking some remote God who lives on a distant
cloud what I should do, I need simply ask the God within me what
to do. God's radio frequency is pure joy. What I should do is what
I would do.

The world is full of "shoulds" dictated by external sources.
Religion, society, family, and peers have all kinds of ideas about
who you should be and what you should do. But no one outside you
can know your personal path as well as you. Some of their "shoulds"
match your "woulds" and some of them don't. Many people fall back
on the seeming security of paths prescribed by external voices. Yet
a small number of independent souls, probably such as you, find
aliveness more attractive than convention. Convention means
"convenient." It is convenient to take the well-trod route, for no one
questions or challenges you. Yet those who take orders from outside
sources do so at the dear cost of their passion and individual
expression ¾ a terrible tradeoff, to be sure.

The highest morality is personal integrity. You are in integrity when
your external acts match your inner knowing. When you forsake your
truth to please others, you fall out of integrity. Robert Louis Stevenson
boldly declared, "To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying
'Amen' to what the world tells that you ought to prefer, is to have kept
your soul alive." And nothing is more important than keeping your soul
alive.

In the film 'Tin Cup', Kevin Costner's character proclaims, "When the
defining moment comes along, you define the moment or the moment
defines you." We have been led to believe that life determines who
we are, when at every moment we determine what our life is. Your
decisions are honorable because they are yours.

More and more I see and hear people using cell phones in public.
Sometimes when I stand in line at an airport I hear several people
within arm's reach chatting away on their cell phones. Cell phones
ring nearly everywhere I go in public. I find it interesting that
each person's cell phone has a distinctive ring. If everyone's phone
had the same ring, no one in a crowd would know whether or not to
answer their phone.

Your soul's calling also has a distinct tone. But you have to know
what it is before you can answer it. The more you live by external
shoulds, the farther you drift from the great love affair with your
own spirit. The more you trust in your soul's calling and hearken
unto it, the more you live in a consciousness of profound love. As a
Chassidic sage nobly stated, "Everyone should carefully observe
which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all
his strength."

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