Whose voice is this?
Ask whether a "should" is really yours, or the anonymous voice of what everyone does.
The story
In 1927, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger published Being and Time. (His later life is a cautionary tale: in 1933 he joined the Nazi party. But this idea has long outlived him.)
He described a force he called das Man, usually translated as "the they" or "the one": the anonymous voice of what one does, what one wears, what one wants. Nobody in particular, and yet it quietly decides much of how we live.
“We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge.”
The idea
Many of our worries are "shoulds": I should own a house by now, I should be further along, I should want children, I should be happier. Few of them were chosen. They were absorbed.
Asking "whose voice is this?" brings the should into the light. Is it a parent's? Social media's? "Everyone's"? Then you can ask what you would want if it were truly up to you.
Sometimes the answer is the same, and now it's yours. Sometimes the should simply falls away.
Echoes in other traditions
- Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard wrote that "the crowd is untruth": we lose ourselves when we hide in the group.
- Psychology
Carl Rogers described "conditions of worth": standards we take on from others in order to be loved.
Try it with something on your mind
Think of a "should" that's been weighing on you.
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Check your understanding
What is the point of asking "whose voice is this?"
Finish the lesson
Answer the question above to complete the lesson.