Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! Whether you celebrate, ignore, or boycott the winter festivities, I hope you are enjoying the season.

For me, the key to enjoying the holidays is sticking with the right modal verb. You know, the verbs that add color to our sentences: must, have to, need to, can, should, may etc. If I focus too heavily on what I ‘must’ do or ‘have to’ do, I become defiant. I don’t want to do that. Why do I have to do that? When I turn my attention to what I ‘could’ do, I become too overwhelmed with possibilities. I could do crafts. I could make personalized holiday cards. I could learn how to make the poppy seed roll my mom bakes every Christmas. My best strategy seems to be sticking with ‘should’.

I know many people who view ‘should’ with negativity. I always wondered why. After all, ‘should’ means more or less ‘because it is good for me’. I should drink enough water every day. I should get enough sleep. I shouldn’t eat a lot of candy. All of that pays off with good health, positive energy, and few visits to the dentist. I wondered why people scoffed at ‘should’. When I dug deeper, I learned that their reading of ‘should’ was more in line of ‘I’m supposed to’ or ‘I’m expected to’.  ‘Should’ was not good advice or good idea one could benefit from, but conforming to expectations.

I found it unfortunate and unfair to the word ‘should’. ‘To be supposed to’ and ‘to be expected to’ are just two synonyms, which don’t explain all the shades and aspects of “should. If we limit should to those synonyms, we are risking  sabotaging our best interests. We will reject any good idea just because we don’t want to live as we are supposed to and expected to.

For me, sticking with the core meaning of ‘should’ as good advice has proven positive. If I don’t know what to do, I ask myself: what should I do? Not what’s expected of me, which I used to do as well, but: what would serve me best? And that’s what I did these holidays when I considered various options and plans.

For example, even though most years we spent Christmas with relatives, because that was important to us, this year, my older son and I decided to stay home instead of going on a vacation with extended family. It served us better this year. As a result, I got to spend overdue quality time with my teenager, and found peace and quiet to catch up on the projects that were important to me. Even though, some years, it was a good idea to throw a traditional, festive holiday dinner, this year not so much. I made no Polish or American Christmas food apart from a few family favorites, but I learned how to make an Aussi classic, Pavlova, instead. It was higher on my list, and my son loved it too. And on top of that I slept in without guilt and I took my doggie for a lot of long walks in our nature paradise because we could, should, and we needed it.

As a result, when people ask me about my holidays, I can easily say that it was a relaxing and fulfilling time. All because sticking with the right modal verb.

What’s your key to happy holidays? Join the conversation in the comments.

Happy New Year!

See you next time, and if you like what you read, share it with others!