Opinion
Petty complaining annoying, solves nothing
March 8, 2007
If there’s one thing about human nature that I can’t stand, it’s the incessant whining and complaining people do on a daily basis. I haven’t been privileged enough in my life to meet one person who is an exception to this rule.
Not all forms of complaining bother me. In fact, some forms of complaining are completely necessary in order to solve certain issues that need to be attended to. However, some of the useless, trivial drivel I hear come out of people’s mouths regarding the weather, their job or how their cell phone sucks, just drives me nuts sometimes.
Do we even realize how good we have it these days? Obviously not. Just take a look at Kris Evan’s column and you can realize that all the trivial things in life are better than being stuck in Africa.
I say “we” because I’m not an exception to this either, I get sucked into it quite often. In fact, just a few minutes ago I was complaining about my wet socks.
While wet socks are about as uncomfortable as an enema (I’m just guessing here), I am going to accomplish absolutely nothing by languishing over my little self-conceived tragedy. That right there sums up the problem and the solution.
If you find yourself about to gripe about something that either no one, or no one but you, can fix, don’t waste your breath, or someone else’s time bitching about it. Take care of the damn problem yourself, or shut up!
Plus, when people start to complain, it opens the complaining floodgates. How many times have you heard someone go on a rant about how much they hate the weather and then you join in? Me too. It’s sad really. You would think people have something better to spend their time talking about. But instead, as usual, we just take the easy way out.
Complaining is also a negative thought process. Just like the warning label on your favorite liquor of choice says, it should be enjoyed in moderation. But all too often, just like with your favorite booze, we indulge ourselves. This is fairly typical of our society, which in my opinion, is spoiled rotten.
I know you’re thinking to yourself, ‘this guy’s a hypocrite, he’s complaining about people complaining.’Yes, I am. But this is a problem that can be solved. It deserves to be complained about along with health care, the war in Iraq and many of UWRF’s dilapidated facilities.
So next time you think about raising a stink because your cell phone doesn’t get reception, just think about how lucky you are to even be able to have one in the first place.
Nick Sortedahl is a student at UW-River Falls.