With Which I Am Fed Up

One of the most detestable qualities in humankind is a propensity for whining and complaining. It's an accepted part of life that we are constantly exposed to things that rub us the wrong way, and one might have guessed that we would have learned to deal with it more gracefully in the thousands of years since the first two people were cast from paradise. If a day goes by during which you weren't upset by even the most inconsequential thing, then it must have been spent in uninterrupted slumber.

I have been thinking  a great deal about the complaints which loom largest both online and in real life. This isn't meant to be a heavy, ponderous treatise with some grand solution from on high or one big complaint in itself. It's only a series of observations I have made and some conclusions I drew, all in the spirit of curiosity and thoughtfulness.

Perhaps most complaints are of an exceptionally trivial and redundant nature. It's all the more unpleasant when the gripes concern things with which the listener has no capacity to relate. When someone shares a negative reaction that matters and it is outweighed by positive ones generally, it's only right to be all understanding. Constructive warnings should be heeded and those who experience significant occasions of discontentment should be granted the compassion they deserve. To perpetually broadcast to the world dissatisfaction with one's every experience in life, however, is both to quickly exhaust the well of compassion and to show people they are ill-served by you rather than the things you tell them about.

Grievances about entertainment, restaurants and things of the like often seem to reveal in the ones voicing them the mistaken belief that they are personally owed something beyond reason. Many a bystander is brought to the brink of physically lashing out when a TV show fails to meet with the approval of His or Her Majesty. It's a similar story when someone is earnestly and vocally angry about the failure of anything which they have no real stake in. A prominent case of this is the backlash faced by underperforming sports teams and athletes. It may be so that the rage indicates a deep and devastating hurt felt by the complainer. Such pain could be avoided if people were only more careful about both how they invest themselves emotionally and the expectations they build up for things.

An egregious complaint is the one which may be quite reasonable, but is spoken so often that the listener wonders at the inexplicable continued involvement of the complainer in that which vexes them so. The hit list includes the places people live, where they work, and any number of voluntary conditions. Surely, the listener reasons in exasperation, they would be happier if they gave it up or devoted their energy to solving the problem instead of what they are doing.In consideration of all this, certain determinations suggest themselves to me.

The underlying feelings that provoke the grousing I speak of are entirely understandable, given the nature of the human condition and the universe which gave rise to it. When giving free expression to those feelings, however, it seems wise to keep it at a modest level  for at least two reasons.Firstly, one soon enough reaches the point at which social ties are strained. This happens all the more rapidly when one does not restrict umbrage to those who brought it on and the select few others who are apt have any interest in hearing about it. I have attempted here to articulate that threshold to the extent that I myself understand it. We are all constantly laboring under the affect of our environments, and the corrosive, undermining effect that such negativity has on the psyche is truly fearful.

Secondly, words serve all too often only to forestall the deeds which hold more potent ability to bring about change. Devoting yourself to bemoaning some unfairness or unwanted outcome prevents you from bringing about the one you desire. I humbly suggest that the above reasoning may be effectively applied in cases such as I have described. Thinking things through will do no harm, and may result in a more positive and productive discourse for all.