Veronica Simmonds (@VeeSimmonds) is a radio producer and audio artist based in Toronto, Canada.

To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST

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TRANSCRIPT:

VERONICA: I feel like I'm often repeating the advice of my father to people cause he has all these cute, little, one-off, one-sentence advice pieces. And I actually feel like the one that I say to people the most is, 'shoulds are the shits.' So whenever anyone is saying like, 'I should call this person' or 'I really should have made that application' or like 'Oh, I should go visit my great aunt.'

So first of all, maybe you just shouldn't be doing things that you only are doing out of obligation. Like, you should only do things that you like, genuinely care about and genuinely want to do. So that's the one thing, don't just do it out obligation and then there's this other thing that's like, if there's something you really want to do, don't let it fester in should land. Just go and do it. Don't wait around. Don't let it be a should that's sitting on your should shelf. Just go make it happen.

ZAK: Yeah, because shoulds piled up just do become this kind of foggy clutter and I feel like it is a a kind of clarifying expression. It's like do it, or don't do it and if you don't do it, don't have these regrets about it.

VERONICA: Oh yeah, and I feel like you'll do such a better job and I feel like in these very transformative and uncertain and intense times that we're going through, there's so many different lanes that people can be in to make things happen and make change happen and I just feel like recognizing what are you actual capacities and what you actually can do with energy and sustainably. Like I think like really paying attention to that is gonna be so important going forward.

ZAK: Rather than like doing the rote social media thing that you see other people doing, or?

Yeah, like just reading all the memes and feeling like this meme is telling me I should do this, I should do this, I should do this. Yeah, you have capacities. You have skills and you have things to offer. But like, tap into the ones that make sense for you as opposed to shoulding yourself in a corner. Actually I think that can be really immobilizing is to feel like there is so much that should be done and you can't do it.

I'm Veronica Simmonds and I'm a radio producer and audio artist based in Toronto.

ZAK: You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. I want to hear your advice. Give me a call at 844-935-BEST. But don't call because you feel like you should do it. Call because you really, really wanna.

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