The Awakening 

I must confess I’ve experienced the ‘what should be’ syndrome many times in my life. While I occasionally succumb to this syndrome still, I’m a lot better at managing this than before. I thank my ‘old’ age and meditation for it. (Nothing like a few decades of being wrong about how things “should” be to teach you a lesson or two!) 

Recently, I observe this same affliction in others at my various coaching conversations, so I share what could be potentially beneficial to you as well. 

In my past, I’d feel quite agitated when my colleagues were too slow to respond to our clients. When my coachees didn’t act on their own resolutions, I would feel hopeless. When my friends weren’t proactive in pursuing their fulfillment, I would be frustrated. Then I would be frustrated with my own mind in overdrive rather than accepting things as they are. It’s like having a perpetually dissatisfied roommate living in my head, one who constantly rearranges the furniture but never pays the rent. 

When my mom was relegated to a hospital bed with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, I had this thought loop of what her circumstances could have been, endlessly frustrating and agonizing.  Why couldn’t “the system” be better at assisting aging minds and slow the worsening conditions,?  Why couldn’t my family go above and beyond what’s average in the country and find a better solution for my mom?  And why don’t I myself quit my life in Canada and move to Korea to take care of her myself? Isn’t that how it should be? 

The Beautiful Paradox 

You could argue that there’s nothing wrong with wanting the best from ourselves and others?  Of course none of what I was hoping for is wrong in itself. We want the best client care, coachees acting on their insights and resolutions and my mom being taken care of by the best system. 

But here’s the transformative truth I’ve discovered: when we release our grip on what “should be,” we don’t lower our standards – we actually become more powerful agents of positive change. It’s a bit like finally accepting that your cat will never learn how to fetch the newspaper – suddenly you’re free to appreciate their actual talents, like their unparalleled ability to find the one sunbeam in a room. 

The Liberation Path 

I’d like to distinguish between what’s in our control in reality versus what we feel should be done in our minds. If you are like me, we are pretty much all the time overrun by our minds – although ideally it’d ‘should be’ the other way around. Our minds make up their ideal circumstances which are not objectively validated and we fret over it when they are not. 

Frustration, agitation and disappointment all stem from our minds offering what can be. But freedom lies on the other side of acceptance. 

The Practical Magic 

Here is what I offer to those who share my journey: 

First, take what can be worked on in reality. I could speak to my colleagues about responding to clients in a timely manner, and try my best communication strategies i.e. listening fully and addressing what’s in it for them. 

Then, embrace the liberating practice of accepting what is. Your best communication could result in improvements, and sometimes not. In this acceptance lies your power – the ability to respond with clarity rather than reaction. 

Transforming Relationships 

What if your boss isn’t exactly how you want them to be – the active mentor,  respectable, always present and proactive and so on. Consider instead who they are right now. What opportunities might exist within this reality that your “should be” thinking has been hiding from you? Perhaps their disorganization is actually teaching you valuable skills in adaptation – skills no perfectly organized mentor could ever impart! 

The flipside of course, is that your team members may not necessarily be your ideal team. But within this truth lies an invitation – to discover strengths you might have overlooked, to develop your own leadership, to find creative solutions you’d never have discovered in an “ideal” world. After all, if MacGyver had been given exactly what he needed, we’d never have seen him create a rocket launcher from paperclips and chewing gum. 

The Inner Revolution 

The most beautiful discovery I’ve made is this: when I stopped exhausting myself fighting against reality, I found new reserves of energy for creating meaningful change. My relationships deepened. My effectiveness increased. And most surprisingly, my joy expanded. Turns out, reality isn’t the enemy – it’s actually quite pleasant when you stop trying to arm-wrestle it into submission. 

This isn’t about settling or compromising. It’s about standing firmly in truth before taking your next step. Like the martial artist who doesn’t resist an opponent’s force but instead works with it, we become more powerful when we harmonize with what is.  

Where might you be fighting reality today? What energy might be released if you fully accepted things as they are before deciding how to respond?