Letters to Viv: Stop Should-ing on Yourself
A letter about honesty, choice, and finally telling yourself the truth
Letters to Viv
Open, soul-packed letters to the kind of human I write for: the curious, creative, exhausted by the hustle, and craving something more. I’m writing to you (and me).
Dear Viv,
I want to talk to you about a word you keep using. It sounds sensible and responsible, the kind of word that feels like you’re doing the right thing simply by saying it.
Should.
I should work out. I should stop drinking. I should want more. I should have this figured out by now. It’s a polite little word, tidy and well-behaved, and it has you quietly tying yourself in knots.
Because when something truly matters to you, you don’t “should” it.
You either do it, or you admit you don’t want it and stop carrying the weight of pretending. Dragging yourself for not wanting the life you were told to want is exhausting, and it doesn’t make you better.
It makes you tired.
So I want to ask you this properly, without the correct answer hovering in the air.
Do you actually want it?
Yes or no.
And I’ll give you a real example, not a lofty one, not a self-help poster version. Just a normal, human one.
I work out because I finally answered my “why”, and it has nothing to do with motivation or discipline.
I want to reach 100 and still be able to wipe my own arse. True story.
I want dignity, independence, and the freedom to move without pain. I don’t want to rely on a stranger named Doug from Mapleview Meadows to help me sit down and narrate the process like it’s a team effort.
That matters to me, so I move and stretch and show up, not because I should, but because I’ve decided I’m worth it.
If something doesn’t matter to you, that’s not a failure.
That’s information.
There is nothing noble about bullying yourself into wanting things you don’t actually care about. Your body knows when you’re lying. It always does, and it keeps reminding you in quiet, irritating ways.
You do this in more places than you realize. With food. With alcohol. With the way you catch yourself doom-scrolling and commenting late at night, suddenly furious about things that had nothing to do with your day.
With stories you keep replaying from decades ago, like they’re still happening and you’re still waiting for a different ending.
I know someone who has turned being wronged into a full-time identity. Same stories, same villains, same dramatic pauses. I’ll give her this; the commitment is impressive.
But at some point, that stops being something that happened and becomes something she chooses to carry.
Here’s the part people don’t like admitting. You can love someone deeply and still accept that you cannot wake them up. You can stop trying to rescue people who keep swimming back to the wreck. That applies outward, and it applies inward too.
Even on the days when getting out of bed feels like climbing Everest in socks, the question doesn’t need to be heroic.
Do you want to get up today?
Yes or no.
If yes, that’s enough. That counts. Life doesn’t change through grand declarations.
It shifts through small, unglamorous choices made honestly, then repeated.
Pain is part of being alive. Choosing to live inside it indefinitely is optional.
You don’t need to fix the world or manage anyone else’s emotions or become a better version of yourself before lunch. You need to stop lying to yourself and start treating your own truth with a bit of respect.
You woke up today.
That matters more than you think.
You were given another ordinary, miraculous day, and it would be a shame to spend it should-ing all over yourself.
Tell the truth. Make the choice. Act on it or let it go. I’m with you in this, always.
XO,
Tanya