Matthew Hussey argues that complaining feels good because it gets you instant sympathy, but chasing new problems for fresh attention keeps you stuck. Real satisfaction comes from solving things, not venting about them, even though problem-solving is harder and rarely rewarded.
Matthew Hussey here from Love Life. Today we're talking about complaining and whether it can ever really be a good thing. I'm interested in this subject, especially when I looked up the dictionary definition of complaining. To complain express dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of affairs or an event. Now, when phrased like that, I don't actually have a problem with complaining. In fact, if you never express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something, not only are you a very boring person, but you're also somebody who doesn't really necessarily have the power to change something. If you're not dissatisfied with something, it gets more difficult to change. If you can't be an. I would argue actually, if you're not annoyed about some things in life, there's something wrong with you. Because there are absolutely things that we should be annoyed at. There are things that we should be outraged at, especially on a moral level. So complaining in that sense is not an evil. I don't see it as a bad thing. I see it as a necessary part of the human condition and a necessary impetus for change, for making changes in our lives and in the world around us. Where complaining tends to become a negative is when we get this protracted, moany state that a lot of people live in where they can't. They're relentless in their objections to things, in simply stating that they don't like something over and over and over again. And I think the time that we get most sick of people, you know, for example, when our friend comes to us, when they come to us once and say something's wrong, very often we hear them out. We may even want to help them. We may want to find a solution for them. We understand that they may be complaining about something that is a legitimate complaint. But if we hear that same friend come back to us every day for the next two weeks about that same thing without having done anything towards changing it, that's when we start to get frustrated with people. But the problem for most of us is that when we complain to someone, it often ends in some sort of positive emotion from them. You think about it when you complain to someone, how often do they say, oh, stop complaining, please leave. You're making me so negative right now. People don't do that. Instead, they put an arm around you, they say, oh, my God, that must be so difficult. They empathize. Many human beings empathize. It's what we're taught to do. And in empathizing, they provide you with some form of validation, some form of significance for having the problem in the first place. And this is one of the greatest dangers of complaining is that complaining leads to short term gratification, instant gratification. Now, what happens when you complain to one friend too many times and they get bored of you? Do most people say, ah, it's probably time for me to stop complaining and stop start solving this problem? No, they just find someone new to complain to. Let me find fresh ears that can give me fresh sympathy for this problem. They just start to do the rounds of their friends and guess what? When they have one problem that has expired, that has no juice left in it, that has been diluted to the point of nothingness, all of a sudden, do they, do they suddenly find new people?
No, there are none left.
So they have to find a new problem. So, so they create a new problem which they can get fresh sympathy for, open up that fresh can of sympathy and start all over again. This is the problem with complaining, is that most people would rather settle for sympathy than go for glory. Because the truth is going after what you want. Solving a problem, let's say, is the harder path in the short term. Actually solving the problem is the harder path. And I should say this, solving the problem is usually quite thankless. When you're off trying to solve something, very often it's a lonely task. You're trying to make something happen, you're butting your head against a wall and no one is noticing. And not only that, but if you come to people in an empowered state where you say, they say, what's wrong? You say, nothing. You know, I got this issue that I got fixed, but I'm on it, I'm fixing it, I'm there. People don't give you love for that. Most of the time people are like, oh, cool, all right, sounds great. But if you said, oh my God.
I have this big problem, I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this and I don't know how I'm going to get it all done today.
They go, oh my God, you're overstressing yourself. You really need to relax, you really need to take some time. And you know, you do so much and it's all this instant gratification compared to when you actually try and do something and try and solve something. And you have the thankless task of doing that. And I would argue that if you want to break the spell of complaining, just change where you get your significance from. Do you get your significance from how many problems you have or the size of your problems? Or do you get your significance from your ability to be creative in solving them. One piece of advice if you decide to take your significance from the latter, you have to get good at giving yourself the validation, because far fewer people will give you the validation for going out and solving problems than they will for having problems in the first place. So that's it for today, my friends. Complaining is healthy when it is an emotional response to a situation that warrants emotion, but it becomes unhealthy when it becomes a relentless moaning about something that you are not trying to change and ultimately will be detrimental to your life. You're the only one that loses. We have to start going for the glory, my friends. Take care, go out there, solve some problems, and enjoy yourselves in the process.
