I have been in Urbana, IL for the past week. I came on my own and Judy stayed in Abilene to hold down the fort. In my absence she has had to manage a developing crisis of our water heater that is showing all the signs of old age and need for replacement (leaking.)

I have had an interesting time on my own, living at my own pace and choosing how to spend my time. I came here with a list of house projects I could work on, people I wanted to contact, some ideas for writing, and the desire to sit and relax a lot. All of these good possibilities put me in unfamiliar territory. No list or person was dictating to me how to spend my time. And yet I still felt a lot of pushes and pulls of what I should be doing.

shouldI spend much of my life living according to “shoulds.” It’s as natural as breathing to me. I perceive most of those “shoulds” as coming from outside myself, from the people who matter to me and the normal demands and expectations of living. These shoulds are typically in the background, like little to-do lists that have been slipped into my life while I wasn’t watching. But these little to-do lists provide much of the structure for my life.

What I am discovering anew this week is that most of those expectations don’t come from others. They are coming from me. There is no one here but me. They are my projections of what I think others expect of me. With no one here at the house, no one to structure my time and energy, I still feel surrounded by “shoulds.”

I think that is my new and unanticipated lesson for Lent. Pay attention to the “shoulds.” Some are indeed coming from other people and from my environment, but if listen carefully, I discover that most are coming from me. It’s just so much easier to project them on someone else and then blame them when I get resentful.