(If you have stumbled across this post, you have found me blogging my upcoming book “Getting to Did: How To Lose Your Big But and Live a Life Without Regret.” In the last installment, Sam met the PROFESSOR. If you need to catch up on the whole book, you can start with “Sam’s Crumbling World” to find an index of all the posts in this book or just start there and follow the successive links.)

Getting the Weight of the World Off Your SHOULD-ers

Sam followed the PROFESSOR into an extremely wooden office. The dark leather furniture even seemed to blend into the wood-grained walls. Instead of sitting behind her desk, the PROFESSOR picked up her phone and said, “Helen, I’m in a PRIORITY meeting.” After a brief pause, “Thank you.” Then, after putting the phone down, she sat in a wing-backed recliner, crossed her legs and offered Sam a seat on the divan on the other side of the coffee table.

“A PRIORITY meeting?” Sam questioned.

“That’s a code word between my staff and me. PRIORITY meeting means two things.”

“And what are those?” Sam asked, certain he was about to learn some amazing secret about conducting meetings.

“First, I only want emergency calls and calls from my husband, kids or grandkids sent through. And second…,” she paused seeing Sam’s expectant look, “keep the coffee coming. I don’t want to be distracted by getting it myself.” The PROFESSOR chuckled at Sam’s bewilderment.

As if on cue, Helen walked in with two mugs and a thermal carafe of coffee. “Tammy and Melinda roasted these beans yesterday,” Helen noted with a smile before leaving.

“Great,” the PROFESSOR said and then turned to Sam. “Alright, let’s get down to business. The TRAINER’S job was to get you from COULDA to CAN. My job is to get you from SHOULDA to SHALL.”

“What on earth does that mean?” Sam interjected.

“Be patient, Sam. By the time I’m done, you’ll understand. Have you noticed the picture behind my desk?”

Sam looked at the portrait as he took a sip of coffee. It showed two men. Both reminded him somewhat of the TRAINER, though both were clearly dressed in some sort of ancient toga type garb. One of the men was laughing, holding a basket full of golden apples and walking away from the other who looked as though he were yelling angry epithets. This second one was stooped, every muscle was bulging under the weight of the entire earth on his shoulders.

“That’s how I feel sometimes,” Sam muttered. “What’s it all about?”

“For me,” the PROFESSOR responded, “it represents a lot of things. However, it is an artist’s depiction of Atlas and Hercules. Have you heard the story?”

Sam shook his head; so the PROFESSOR continued, “According to myth, Hercules was given 12 mammoth tasks by the king of Mycenae. The eleventh was to retrieve golden apples from the Hesperides. I could spend all day talking about this, but if you want to know more about the Hesperides, their apples and why this was such a big task, look it up on the Internet. Hercules knew only one person who could get the Hesperides to give up any of their golden apples—their father, Atlas.

“Hercules hit a snag here—Atlas was busy. Having been punished by Zeus, he was condemned to carry the weight of the heavens on his shoulder. Hercules visited Atlas and offered to give him a break from holding up the heavens, if he would get some of his daughters’ apples. Atlas agreed and got the apples. However, when he returned he told Hercules he was not going to take back the weight of the heavens.

“There stood Hercules bearing the crushing weight of the heavens. Instead of getting mad at Atlas, he had planned for just such an event. He shrugged and in essence said, ‘I can’t blame you. I guess you got the better of me on this one, Atlas. Well, if I’m going to have to carry this weight, I might as well get comfortable. Could you help me adjust the padding on my shoulder?’ When Atlas lifted the heavens to help Hercules adjust his toga, Hercules stepped out from under the heavens and let them fall squarely on Atlas’ shoulders. He then picked up the basket of apples and took them back to the king of Mycenae.”

“That’s a great story,” Sam said without much conviction in his voice, “but what’s your point? Don’t be stupid like Atlas?”

“Actually, yes. A lot of us today are, as you put it, ‘stupid like Atlas.’ When you first saw the picture, you said it was how you feel sometimes. What did you mean?”

Sam didn’t have to think about his reply this time, “Right now I feel like I have the weight of the whole world on my shoulders. I think about all that my dad told me I SHOULD do to provide for my family. I think about what Susan, my wife, keeps telling me I SHOULD do. I think about what Dave tells me I SHOULD do. I think about what the TRAINER said I SHOULD do. Now I’m going to have to think about what you say I SHOULD do. Not to mention everything that is expected from what our society and my church says I SHOULD do. It gets to be a bit overwhelming, almost paralyzing.

“I’m like that guy in the picture, Atlas. I’m being crushed by the weight of the world. I can’t figure out which way I SHOULD go and I just want to scream at the people who seem to be only carrying apples.”

“That, Sam, is exactly how I felt several years ago, back when I still lived next door to Dave.”

“You lived next door to Dave? That’s where I live.”

“I know, I hope you don’t think we asked too much for that house,” the PROFESSOR said laughing.

Sam looked again at the name plate on the huge cherry desk and suddenly realized why the PROFESSOR’S name had seemed so familiar. He had signed what seemed like a thousand papers with her and her husband’s signatures already on them. He chuckled.

“No. We thought the price was great. We just hope we get to keep living there by the time I get through all this.”

The PROFESSOR smiled and said, “Me too. Back to Atlas and Hercules; and you and me. As I said a few minutes ago, many of us are stupid like Atlas and let the rest of the world put their weight on our shoulders. Too many of us are carrying the weight of the world on our SHOULD-ers.

“We keep hearing what we SHOULD do from everyone in our families, churches, neighborhoods, companies, schools and so on. Not to mention all the SHOULDAS we tell ourselves every day. Then after years of living in the world of SHOULDA, we look around and see we are not where we want to be. Or worse, we follow all the SHOULDAS and our world falls apart anyway, like when you lose the job from which you thought you would retire. Then we spend our time telling everyone who will listen how our lives COULDA been better because we SHOULDA done this or that, BUT one thing or another got in the way. After years of that, we develop a phenomenally big BUT. I want to help you get rid of that big BUT by helping you get that weight off your SHOULD-ers. We need to remove all the useless SHOULDAS and turn the profitable ones into SHALLS.”

“How do you do that?” Sam asked sitting up a little taller, expecting to get to some real wisdom.

“In the big picture, there are really only three profitable SHOULDAS.”

The PROFESSOR got up and retrieved a business card from her desk. As she sat back down, she handed the card to Sam. He examined it closely:

 

“I SHALL?” Sam inquired nonplussed.

“You SHALL,” the PROFESSOR responded with confidence. “Remember, my job is to help you turn your SHOULDAS into SHALLS. These are the three things you SHOULDA do. If you are wise, they are the three things you SHALL do.”

“Well, this ought to be easier than what the TRAINER taught me. He had nine things. But what do they mean?” objected Sam.

(Come back next Thursday when the PROFESSOR teaches Sam how You SHALL be the best You.)

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