Should Have Known Better

“You shoulda known, better, dumbass!”

• Dick Heston (1933 – 2002), on something like 213 occasions in my earlier years

“Should Have Known Better” was also an awful song by Jim Diamond in 1984. There. I linked it. I should have known better.

^{Rant alert. Today’s post is a rant. There IS a business application, so maybe you should stay with it. No, you shouldn’t, unless you want to.}

“Should.” The word is a problem in the lives of Difference Makers.

On the plus side, we should often know better! So, Dad, you may have been right. For example, if I go to bed before 10:30 and get up before 6:15, that’s my peak performance window. But if The Final Countdown, Roadhouse, Blues Brothers, or A Few Good Men* happen to be on right after the news, I’m pretty committed to finishing them at around 1 AM. So, I know I should crash early and get up early, and I know I shouldn’t watch these movies for the 732nd time to see if I might pick up some little tidbit I missed on the first 731 times I’ve watched them. But I love those movies. Sue me.

Today, because it’s her Spring Break from the finest University on earth, I get to take the Youngest of The Three on a Daughter / Dad Trip to Omaha — the USA’s third-best zoo and an excellent French restaurant. It’s going to be awesome.

Golf season, which I missed last year with eleventy-three significant surgeries, begins Saturday, so, also today, I just knew I should get up early and go to the gym before we leave for the zoo. I did it. It was probably good for me. I should have been proud of myself. I freaking HATED it.

Lots of people enjoy working out first thing in the morning. I are not one o’ them peoples!

The issue here is the word “should.” It’s a damning word. It’s an auxiliary verb for crying out loud. Auxiliary! Not even an actual verb!

“I will.” Statement of authority and commitment.

“You can.” Statement of empowerment and encouragement.

“We shall.” Statement of purpose.

“_________ should.” Statement of Karen-esque judgment and guilt-transferring-ickiness.

Dad, to his credit, switched to “You KNOW better” when I was about 14. (He was probably thinking, “I should have spanked him more,” but that could get us into a spiral of conflicting grammatical and parenting advice, now, couldn’t it?)

I will go to bed earlier tonight, but not at the expense of time with The Youngest. I will get up early tomorrow unless the time with The Youngest produces a late arrival tonight. I will get two proposals done by the end of the day tomorrow, even though they’re not due until Friday. I will stop using “should,” which will improve my life and the lives of those around me.

So can you. So can all of us Difference Makers.

*To make up for this icky rant post, tune in tomorrow through Friday for the half dozen or so great sales meetings that are part of the movie A Few Good Men. It’s not that you should, it’s that “YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!”