So, we’ve made it through the first month of 2025! Congrats so far!
As I’ve noted earlier, I’ve lost a lot of my energy in January to sickness. This week I’m finally feeling solidly on the mend (though my cough is still annoying, but every day a bit less so).
I’ve spent this morning weeding through a backlog of email, and getting a few neglected tasks into my planner. I’ve also been able to do a bit of edification type reading.
This morning’s email about Complaining from Seth Godin struck me. I occasionally struggle with it, even though I find it (mostly) a waste of energy. Seth made some good points about it’s purpose.
- “The obvious reason to complain is to make a change happen.”
- That one is often not really the point. Though, if it is the goal, we need to “…focus those complaints where they’ll do the most good, and be prepared to do the work to have an impact”.
- He does list of other reasons, which is worth the minute or two it takes to read his post.
He also points out that complaining is the “evil cousin” of whining. And that whining is pretty wasteful in terms of effectiveness. Both are often simply functions of the entitled mentality.
His last point, which I’m going to embrace, is ““The best way to complain is to make things better.” At least, if positive change is your goal. If it’s simply to deflect blame, conceal fear, or anything else, then, well, go and do you.
Do you have strategies to keep complaining/whining at bay?
