I just read this post by Walmar about people who tie their satisfaction to achieving goals. Walmar says that this is pushing things too far and causes many problems, because if the goals are not met, it negatively affects the motivation of people whose mood is tied to them. It got me thinking about another behavior: imagining that things elsewhere are better and then complaining about what is close at hand.
One thing I see fairly often is people putting down the places they visit or work, and sometimes even the places where they live. They say they have been to other, larger cities and that things were much better there.
What this reflects is the illusion that things elsewhere are better. I have heard people say that public transportation in the capital is great and the system in our city is terrible. Others say that courses in the capital use techniques that engage students more and make them more productive than the local university’s approach, and so on.
There comes a point when you get tired of hearing this sort of thing. It seems more like an attitude from people trapped in their “comfort zones.” They are generally unproductive. I like to explain this behavior as a way of expressing frustration at not feeling capable of being productive and failing to recognize the importance of simple things, including the discernment to deal harmoniously with life’s differences—differences in personalities, attitudes, environments, or cities. It is also a one-way and “short-sighted” view of the world around us.
A good way to make the penny drop about this behavior is to understand that resources are scarce and to make a habit of seeking out other points of view.
If you pay attention to people who complain too much, you will notice that they generally share similar characteristics. They came into the world, found everything ready-made, and have no interest in doing anything that might really improve the place where they are. It is as though the world revolved around them, and they never stopped to reconsider attitudes that do nothing to improve either their own mood or their relationships with the world around them.
We live in a world where resources are scarce, and our lives are short. So a proactive attitude would be to act responsibly wherever we are, managing the resources available to us.
All right, how do we do that in practice? In the case of the woman who complained about the buses here in Mossoró, it would be helpful if she at least learned about the bus company and understood some of the problems involved in managing it. Only then would she realize that the neighborhood where she lives gets lower priority than other neighborhoods because its residents prefer to take taxis. From the perspective of the person managing the company, that is obvious: sending many buses to places where passengers prefer taxis could bankrupt the company. Another possibility would be to shift our perspective from “time is money,” which demands rigid schedules, overtime, little social life, and so on, and adopt a little of the “time is life” approach. That brings quality of life into the picture: there is no need to be in such a hurry when money is no longer the goal at any cost. Instead, happiness and harmony with life come first, and money serves the person, not the other way around.
As for the person who said courses elsewhere were much more interesting than local ones, I would say that if we think like the people managing the course, we can do the best we can within our limits. If they investigate the course a little, they will learn that it was an experimental course being offered for the first time, so it still had a long way to go and plenty of room for improvement. The course could not be too expensive, and consequently, without differentiated compensation, teachers were not as motivated to innovate in their teaching methods. The class was very mixed, which made planning lessons difficult because students had different levels of knowledge in the field.
I want to make it clear that I am not judging people. I am simply expressing my indignation at the habit of doing nothing but complaining and putting down the things and people around us, while offering a few arguments for reflection. Maybe we can “see the light” and start filling our time with healthier, more productive actions.
Best wishes to everyone, and remember: complaining too much is a trap!