Should’ve, Would’ve, Could’ve… Didn’t

I’m slowly discovering something that feels obvious once you say it out loud, but strangely radical when you actually try to live it:

There is no should.

There is no universal rulebook quietly judging how I spend my mornings, what I eat for lunch, or whether my favourite colour makes sense to anyone else.

My favourite colour is rainbow. Not blue. Not green. Not something neat and grown-up. All of them. Together. Loud, messy, joyful.

Ironically, the first person who ever said to me, “There is no should,” and that happiness is about what you want, not what looks correct on paper, was also the person who questioned it.

They asked me my favourite colour. I said rainbow.

They laughed. Called it a cop-out. Gave me grief for it. And without really thinking, I apologised. I backtracked. I said pink instead. Something simpler, more acceptable, easier to file away.

It surprised me how quickly I folded. How instinctively I corrected myself. As if liking everything was somehow less valid than liking one thing very precisely.

A few days later, on my birthday, something quietly rewired itself.

I was surprised by people who were still very new in my life, new friends, not long met, and yet the gifts, the colours, the thought behind them felt completely in tune with that first answer. Bright. Varied. Joyful. Unapologetically me.

When I told them my favourite colour was rainbow, no one laughed. No one questioned it. No one asked me to justify it.

They just accepted it.

And yes, maybe in some pseudo-scientific personality-test way, saying your favourite colour is rainbow supposedly means you’re indecisive, or childish, or unwilling to commit. But for me, it means something else entirely.

It means I believe anything is possible.It means joy doesn’t need to be narrowed down to one option.It means I don’t want to close doors just to appear decisive.

Rainbow doesn’t mean I don’t know who I am.It means I refuse to shrink myself into something simpler just so I’m easier to understand.

I think part of why this has been so hard is that I’ve spent most of my life measuring my worth by how much I was doing.

Before I was a chef, it was university. How long I studied. What grades I got. How social I was. What extra-curriculars I could list alongside the academic ones. Then came kitchens, where intensity isn’t just normal, it’s praised. Long hours. Physical exhaustion. Always busy. Always useful. Then running my own business, where there was no off-switch at all.

For years, teaching in Vietnam lived quietly in my head as Plan B. Not a failure plan. An escape hatch.What I’d do if everything became too much.If I wanted to travel.If I wanted to explore.If I wanted to finally let go of the hard taskmaster in my head that wouldn’t let me rest.

After ten years in the chef industry, after burning through pretty much every reserve of strength I had, I finally decided to initiate that plan.

That didn’t mean I wanted to stop caring. Teaching appealed to me precisely because it felt meaningful. A way to stay motivated and make a positive difference, rather than pouring myself into another version of the hospitality machine.

But no one rewires their personality overnight.

When something has been hard-wired for that long, it doesn’t disappear just because your job title changes. So I found myself doing what I’ve always done. Trying to get involved in everything. Trying to stay busy and trying to prove, mostly to myself, that I was still using my time properly.

This isn’t about being social. This is about activity.

About the strange guilt of not working enough, even when the work itself is challenging, demanding, and genuinely meaningful. About feeling like my days off should be spent travelling further, climbing mountains, seeing outer areas, even though I don’t have my own transport, and even though none of that is actually what I want right now.

Recently, I asked if anyone fancied a morning walk. It seemed harmless.

But here, a “morning walk” often means 5am.

And suddenly it felt like my identity was being questioned. Getting up at 5 am, walking, then filling the entire day until I start work at 5 pm, before working until 9 pm, sounds utterly exhausting to me. What’s wrong with a stroll at 8 or 9 am? When did that become laziness?

And then came Boxing Day.

I woke up at 8 am, already tired. I tidied the apartment, then, quietly, without negotiation, allowed myself a little more rest. Around 10 am, I went to the beach alone, headphones in and music playing.

I walked for about an hour and a half, right at the shoreline, waves washing over my feet. Not one of the “must-see” beaches. Not anywhere spectacular. Just the stretch closest to me.

And I realised I didn’t need more than that.

I didn’t need the popular spots. I didn’t need a big adventure. I didn’t need proof that I was doing this life correctly.

I had the sea. I had music. I had enough.

And maybe that’s what “there is no should” actually looks like.

Not grand declarations.Not permission from anyone else. Just listening and letting what brings you joy be the right answer.

My favourite colour is rainbow. My mornings don’t start at 5 am. Some days, a quiet walk by the sea is everything.

And that, finally, feels like living my own life. 🌈