2 kinds of complainers

Which one are you?

The first kind is the one we all know and love (or perhaps just tolerate through excessive eye rolls). This person is problem focused. They find a problem with anything and everything.

What’s worse is if you offer a potential solution they’ll probably find a problem with that too.

The second person is solution focused. They’ll complain as a way to vent their frustrations but then they’ll move on and do something about it.

The first person never manages to progress nearly as much as the second.

The comparison monologue

Also known as complaining about all the things other people have.

‘She’s the same age as me but I’m pretty sure she’s a millionaire (or at least not far from it), she successful, beautiful, has great personal style, has more freedom, more friends and probably more of something else beginning with F, like Fendi perhaps. I definitely can’t afford Fendi.

Her life is so much better than mine.’

What’s the use in making comparisons if it doesn’t feel good or it makes you forget all the good things your life is full of.

How about instead of looking at what other people have, focus on yourself.

You have a challenging and interesting job, you have a few close special friends, you make people laugh, you’re generous, you spend your free time creating and you’re an avid learner.

Sure you don’t have tonnes of money but that’s not what has you feeling discontent because there will always be someone who has things you don’t have.

You feel discontent because you’re playing a losing game whilst trying to convince yourself that you can win.

You feel discontent because you’re not happy with where you’re at and you’re using other people as a distraction from how you feel about yourself.

But maybe you could face those feelings and figure out what you can do to change the way you feel for the better.

She carries it with her wherever she goes

If you’re wondering what she carries with her, the answer is fear.

It’s in her voice, the way she talks. You’ll hear the words not quite flow because she’s second guessing herself, so worried about not saying the wrong thing that she can never say the right thing.

It’s in the way she walks, with her head down and no eye contact. She sort of stomps along as if to make her presence known but all she wants to do is hide.

And if you watch her you’ll see it in the way she picks at her fingers, fidgets in her seat and constantly observes her surroundings as though there is something to fear.

But there is something to fear, at least there is in her world.

There’s mistakes, embarrassment and comparison.

And it’s in the way she moves. She’s so tense and rigid that it feels uncomfortable to relax her muscles.

She is so full of fear and she carries it with her wherever she goes.

If she could only let it go it would change her life and she knows it but she doesn’t know how.

Even when she can’t feel it, it’s still there lingering.

But most people have no idea and so they just think she’s a little odd but she’s just trying to be normal.