Swimming in a Sea of Shoulds

Sometimes it begins with a scroll.

A former classmate published an article. A colleague earned a promotion. Someone else is traveling, changing careers, or celebrating another milestone.

You are happy for them.

And then a question surfaces:

Should I have done that too?

That is when the Should Shark starts circling.

It Feeds on Other People’s Timelines

The Should Shark searches your past for different choices.

You should have taken that job.

You should have gone back to school.

You should be farther by now.

Before long, someone else’s success begins to feel like evidence that you are behind.

The Shark takes another person’s timeline and uses it to question your own.

Hindsight Is Not the Whole Story

Looking backward gives us information we did not have when we made our original choices.

Our younger selves did not know how everything would turn out. They made decisions with the knowledge, responsibilities, resources, and hopes they had at the time.

The Should Shark forgets this.

It judges yesterday’s choices using today’s knowledge and whispers:

You chose wrong.

But your life is not a race, and your path is not a mistake.

“Should” is often just the shadow of someone else’s story.

You Can Still Choose From Here

Regret is not always the enemy. Sometimes it reveals something that still matters to us.

The question is whether regret helps us move forward or keeps us swimming through blame and what-ifs.

When the Should Shark appears, ask:

Whose timeline am I measuring myself against?

What did I know when I made that choice?

What remains possible from where I am today?

You do not have to rewrite your past to create something new.

You made the best choices you could with what you knew then.

The Should Shark may circle your past, but it does not get to chart your future.