The Case for “Less 'Should Be,' More 'Shubi-Duba-Do'”

We spend so much of our lives trying to keep everything neatly in tune—chasing seamless execution, graceful trajectories, and flawless performances across work, relationships, and daily routines. Yet reality rarely plays along, leaving us out of tune, losing our balance, and watching our carefully laid plans lose their rhythm altogether.

And yet, more often than not, the heaviest part of the day isn’t a sudden crisis. It is the quiet, accumulating weight of unspooled expectations: the invisible backlog of how things ought to be, how we should act, and what we should have achieved by now. Drowning in endless “should-bes” and “should-dos,” the air just drains right out of the room.

The harder we try to live up to these invisible demands, the more we break out in a cold sweat, trip over our own feet, and get our tongues all tied in knots. So, here is a modest proposal:

Less ‘Should Be’, More ‘Shubi-Duba-Do’.

Why not let the tongue trip and the limbs get tangled? After all, if that’s what it takes to keep breathing, well, it is close enough for jazz.

I don’t know much about jazz, but in jazz, a “wrong” note is never a failure—it is simply the turn where a new melody begins.

And so, when the score falls apart, we are left with the unexpected syncopation of being human. A sudden coffee ring left behind on a fresh notebook, a forgotten umbrella hanging silently on an empty hook, or a stray melody humming softly through an open window. These little slips are what give the day its unexpected groove.

Even the missteps we used to call failures turn out quite alright once you give them a little shubi-duba-do. Before you know it, even the people around you start nodding along to the groove, smiling at the playful absurdity of it all.

So let the tangled feet trip right into an off-beat scat. Let the clumsiness happen without apology. When the “should-be” pressure starts closing in, remember that you don’t need a grand manifesto to lighten the load—just a little nonsense rhythm to rattle and roll off the stiffness with ‘Shubi-Duba-Do.’

Now… let’s just shubi-duba-do the rest of the day!