“I have to” and “I choose” are two different, complementary life positions.
The life position “I must” is the motive of behavior, which is based on a person’s ideas about duty. For example, “A man must protect his family and his homeland”, “I must be faithful to my wife”, “I must take care of my elderly parents”, “I must help people”, “I must be useful”.
Benefit — the necessary benefit, an objective positive result. What meets the needs. Children do not use the category useful-harmful, preferring to operate with concepts: pleasant-not pleasant, like-dislike. Adults are more guided by useful-unhelpful, necessary-not necessary. Although, by the way, adult children still continue to use the categories I want or don’t want.
People who tend to formulate their intentions in this way may be guided by different considerations and experience different feelings. For some, the wording “I must” is a natural statement, for another or in a different situation, it is a joyful challenge that gives rise to self-respect. Usually this is how people perceive «should» brought up in good families, where order and discipline were in the order of things.
For other people, the wording “I have to” is associated with an unpleasant heaviness, a feeling of pressure and a sense of deprivation of freedom. It seems that these people protested against parental upbringing in childhood, or parents did not instill the habit of certain duties, and such a child, having become an adult according to the passport, was not ready for the requirements of adult life.
In the case of such internal protests against “I owe” (“To whom do I owe?? I owe nothing to anyone!” Replacing the wording with “I choose” is a relatively successful option. In this case, things that seem to be essentially the same in essence sound softer and emphasize the freedom of a person to choose: “I choose to be faithful to my wife”, “I choose to take care of my elderly parents”, “I choose to help people”, “I choose to be useful to people.” If such things are said by an adult who takes into account not only your own interests, but also the needs of other people — this is excellent.If these are the formulations of a child-person who covers his childish “I want” with beautiful words, you should not contact such a person for a serious personal or business relationship.