It's Too Hard, Let Me Tell You About It

Whining. It’s such a waste of time. It’s also one of those things that feels good while you’re doing it, but not afterwards. So is commiserating. If you’re involved in this futile loop, it’s time to get out.

What do I mean?

Well, let’s say there’s something you must do you don’t want to. This could be so many things – de-cluttering the garage, writing a thank you note, going to the DVM to get your license renewed, taking that pile of clothes over to Goodwill, turning in your expense account report, or writing a performance review for an employee.

Each of these tasks I’ve mentioned could take you an hour or two. If you talk about it, however, it could extend into infinity. If you’re the whining type, you could call everyone you know and fuss about what you aren’t doing, and each phone call could easily take an hour.

If you’re the commiserating type the whiner knows they can go to, you could easily devote an hour to their whining, which would allow you not to do what you should be doing, and then go whine to someone else.

The payoff is the connection with people, and not having to do the nasty chore. We all like sympathy, emotional connection, empathy and “understanding.” After all, no one’s going to argue with you that going to the DVM ranks right up there with a root canal.

There are procrastinators and then there are blackhole procrastinators. I have one friend who procrastinates on tasks he doesn’t want to do, but he’s generally happy about it all, and he doesn’t call other people and complain. He also occupies himself keeping busy with things he likes to do, and there are many. He limits his ability to succeed by this habit, but it’s somewhat contained and he doesn’t bother other people with it too much.

Then there’s Erin, who’s a blackhole procrastinator. She sucks things into her negative energy. Get around it and you could disappear and come out in an alternate universe. In fact it IS an alternate universe. While she is putting off what she should be doing, she is gobbling up other people’s time, and sucking away their positive emotions with her complaining.

Because this is a habit to her, her list of things that are “too hard,” “awful,” and “unfair” goes on forever. It’s so long I know she’s CAPABLE of being organized and efficient, because I would have to have a written list of all the things to complain about.

Yes, I limit the time I’m willing to listen to her complain. But as I prematurely terminate the phone call when I hear the laundry list of whines about to happen, I know she’s got her hand on the dial ready to call the next person who will listen to her.

The thing is that complaining doesn’t make a difference. Now, if you had a parent where complaining worked and got you out of doing things, smart child that you are, you developed the habit. It worked. You’d have been dumb NOT to use it.

The thing though is that in the adult world, the things don’t go away. Your parent isn’t going to come along behind you and fix you the meal you don’t fix, or go to your job on the day you don’t feel like getting up, or put the oil in your car. The necessary things that don’t get done just won’t get done, and then you have newer and usually bigger problems. You eat junk food and gain weight. You lose your job. Instead of needing to put oil in your car, you need a new engine.

No one’s ever told me, “Gosh, I live to change dirty diapers. I can’t wait to do it every day. In fact I think I’ll put off potty-training this kid for another 6 months I enjoy it so much. And, hey, bring your kid over here too.”

And what good does sympathy do? No one likes to do something like that. Are you kidding? So you could talk about this, or you could do what needs doing and use that time to go do something you DO like doing. And keep the respect of your friends.

The whining and the complaining don’t change anything except you. It drags you down, it drags out the chore (which usually could be accomplished in the time you took complaining about it), it drags others down and trust me, won’t make you popular, except with other complainers, and then you WILL be living in your own little hell.

The payoff is the emotional connection – sharing with other people. That being the case, why not turn it around? Allow yourself to complain AFTER the task is done. Call me after you’ve scraped the barnacles off the boat for another year, and I’ll agree it was awful. But I’ll also respect you, and think “what a guy!” And you’ll feel good about yourself as well.

Not whining is like forgiving someone who’s done you wrong. You do it for yourself – for you, and only you. If you’re a whiner, you won’t respect yourself. How could you? You listen to whining and negative thoughts all day long and watch your problems get worse because of your neglect. You listen to someone (you) who thinks they are hopeless and helpless, put upon, and incapable of handling things.

You will also greatly magnify the complexity of the task, and reinforce how awful it is. How long can 15 minutes of this or that be? But if you focus on it, you’re also practicing how “awful” it is, reinforcing feeling negative about it, and then you’ll have to make it come true, because we listen to ourselves!

Get it done – cheerfully, quickly and well – and you’ll feel super about yourself. For precisely the same reason – it WAS difficult. But you did it!