You should have called

You should wake up at 7am, and your eyelids should spring open without the aid of an alarm, because you should be well rested and rejuvenated from the 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep that you've had. You should reach for the tall and tantalizing glass of water that you placed beside your bed the night before, and drink it immediately. Because you've risen before you needed to, you should throw yourself into a fitness regime coupled with sports attire and uplifting music plugged into your ears. You should return home gasping slightly, a light sheen of sweat covering your brow, but definitely not struggling to breathe, definitely not throwing yourself on the floor/couch/bed as your muscles seize up in angst. You should then eat a filling and nutritious breakfast, perhaps a bowl of muslei (low-in sugar of course) with natural yoghurt and fresh apple, coupled with a banana and a mug of green tea. You should shower, shampoo, condition, exfoliate, moisturise, tone, moisturise, remove offensive hair, cut offensive toe and fingernails. You should dress indiscriminately, you should be neither hot or cold. You should have an umbrella in your bag, shrapnel and $20 cash in your wallet, a bus ticket that has been pre-purchased. You should pack your lunch and a bottle of water. You should take vitamins and you should eat five vegetables and three pieces of fruit daily. You should limit your snacking in between meals and avoid saturated fats, palm oil and MSG. You should eat your dinner before 8pm and you should drink a soothing cup of cammomile tea before you retire to bed, your mind a clean slate ready for the following day and you should fall asleep within approximately seven minutes.

You should have an equal balance between work, study and a social life. You should keep all your notes in individual folders, separated by neat and labelled dividers. You should tick off your readings as you complete them, you should write summaries of the texts and keep them adjacent to your lecture notes. You should complete not only the presribed readings but the additional and further readings, because you have a fire to learn that is burning within you, which means that in addition to getting 8.5 hours of sleep a night, you should be able to read 200 pages of dry and poorly written research information each day. You should dedicate an additional 4 hours of study time for each subject each week. You should attend each lecture and each tute, you should ask innovative questions, you should complete assignments the week before they're due. You should request practice exams and additional exercises from your tutor. You should spend the time in between your lectures and tutes in the library, which should be a quiet and studious haven filled with like-minded beings. You should print out your lecture notes before each class and make colour-coded annotations in the margins. You should participate in co-curricular activities and volunteer on campus. You should arrive at your classes with enough time to have your books out in front of you, to secure a seat where you can see the screen (and the clock).

You should save 10% of your income each week, you should give to chosen charities, you should save your coins in a sealed tin and empty it every few months. You should resist the urge to make impulse purchases, you should avoid credit card debt and you should have a high interest savings account. You should pay your phone bill on time, you should have high-speed Internet. You should send birthday cards and thank you notes to your elderly relatives, you should speak to your parents at least twice a week. You should give kind and guiding advice to your younger siblings, you should attend family functions as a social and animated being. You should wash your sheets once a week, you should get a haircut before your hair breaks off on its own. You should be able to make idle chit-chat with your co-workers even if you don't like them and you should listen to your music at such a decibel that your fellow train passengers can't hear it through your headphones. You should give your seat up for the elderly, pregnant or disabled, you should recycle your plastics and cardboards, you should stand to the left of the escalator. You should scrape leftovers into sealed Tupperware containers and eat them the following day, you should have a compost bin, you should use environmentally friendly cleaning products, you should have a water-saving shower head and keep a bucket in the shower, emptying the additional water into the garden each morning. You should dryclean your coat every 6 months, you should learn another language, you should give your old clothes to the op shop, you should wash your frying pan with the soft side of the scourer. You should wait until the green man flashes and avoid J-walking, you should park in between the lines.

You should be balanced, well-adjusted, emotionally-stable, in good health both physically and mentally. You should make strong decisions, be kind to yourself, be kind to those around you, not blasphem, be tolerant of others and their views. You should seize each day, you should avoid looking directly at the sun, you should smile at shop attendants and hold the door open for mothers with prams. You should sew the buttons back on your clothes when they fall off, you should wear slippers when it's cold, you should pull to the side when you hear ambulance sirens.

You should, and you could, but do you?