" Sometimes my clients are unclear about whether they are striving toward their potential or are on a search for glory, but a search for glory is pretty easy to spot. Any search for glory is propelled by what Horney called the tyranny of the should. Listening to Talia talk, it was difficult not to notice the “shoulds” and “supposed to’s” that littered her sentences: Work should be Wow! She should be in graduate school. Her life should look better than it did. Shoulds can masquerade as high standards or lofty goals, but they are not the same. Goals direct us from the inside, but shoulds are paralyzing judgments from the outside. Goals feel like authentic dreams while shoulds feel like oppressive obligations. Shoulds set up a false dichotomy between either meeting an ideal or being a failure, between perfection or settling. The tyranny of the should even pits us against our own best interests. "

― Meg Jay , The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now