WHY IT'S BETTER TO RECEIVE THAN GIVE

Happy Halloween!  Here’s a “trick” question for you:  is it better to receive a free treat or give one?  Actually, no trick…receiving free candy is empirically better than giving it.  Right?  If you are experiencing any discomfort with this statement, then I feel you.  We are supposed to want to give, it’s greedy to want something for nothing, free “treats” are for children; adults are supposed to earn everything that we get.  You didn’t earn it, you don’t “deserve” it!  Are you more comfortable with that statement?  I’ll bet the majority of you are, and for very good reason…it’s what all people born into Generation X and before were raised to believe.  We disdain the “everybody gets a trophy” culture, the frankly horrifying ability to retake a test when a score is subpar and the younger generation’s infamous “sense of entitlement”.  Well, I’ve got some news for you…although those beliefs are as deeply ingrained in me as anyone, I am starting to have a sneaking suspicion we are wrong.  And we are paying for this misconception dearly.

Have you ever done something really nice, really generous for someone and received no thanks for it?  Of course you have, we all have, millions of times.  Does it stop us from giving of ourselves in the future?  Occasionally it may give us pause to repeat our generosity to the ungrateful receiver specifically, but in general the answer is no, I am sure.  We are hardwired to give of ourselves; there is literally nothing else to do.  We give our time, our love, our compassion, our wisdom and our humor freely, and on a regular basis.  We lend a hand, an ear, a buck whenever we can.  We donate canned goods, “gently used” items, blood, a kidney, for God’s sake.  People give and give and give and give because that is our mission on earth—to express ourselves to others, generously and often.  But have you ever asked yourself what kind of receiver you are?  Because frequently this is where the flow dries up…this is where we stop the expression of love dead-in-its-tracks.

How good are you at accepting a favor?  How comfortable are you with a compliment?  How open are you to support, both emotional and physical?  How uncomfortable did you feel when I pointed out that getting free candy is WAY BETTER than giving it?  We have become, many of us, in our striving for self-reliance, independence and in general bad-assness, ungracious receivers.  Hear that!  Even if you think you are refusing someone’s generosity for “righteous” reasons, you are still being entirely ungracious by robbing them of the satisfaction of giving.  Think about how you feel when someone does not acknowledge a kindness you have extended…now imagine that person pre-emptively refusing your kindness.  That is what you are doing when you say no to someone who is extending themselves to you.  My Grandfather had a stock joke he made whenever anyone did something nice for him; he’d always say “You shouldn’a done it”.  He was kidding, but too many of us are not.  Too many of us are uncomfortable receiving what others have to give.  Too many of us are uncomfortable with the “treat” part of life.

The brilliant and entirely bad-ass late British author Iris Murdoch once posited, “One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats”.   Holla, Iris!  My best friend’s grandmother believed this as well, and at the end each of day treated herself to one piece of chocolate…there is something to be said for knowing the reward is coming that keeps the pep in our step.  Knowing we can have a piece of chocolate every day may even prevent us from having a hundred pieces of chocolate in one sitting when we are stressed out.  But I think most people would consider this protocol overindulgent nowadays.  When I was a kid we had dessert every night, as did most kids I knew; it was part of the dinner meal.  And childhood obesity was not anywhere near the problem then that it is now.  This stinginess we feel towards ourselves is ironically pushing us towards MORE unhealthy behaviors, because we are not allowing the flow of “continuous small treats”.  We deny our need to be treated and blood pressure, addictive behaviors and reliance on medication to get through the day all go through the roof.  So say I.

Of course Jesus said, “It is better to give than to receive”, but who knows where that guy was coming from?  Ha.  Kidding.  But when you think about it, how can you give if there is no one willing to receive?  The two way street of giving and receiving must remain wide open for life to flow, for us to experience that elusive “happy life”.  Think of how good you feel when you get authentic recognition for your efforts, whether it be your work, your altruism or just your sense of humor.  It lights you up inside, makes you want to give more and more and more of yourself.  So how about returning the favor?  Give other people the opportunity to express their generosity to you, and you have opened an important gate to giving—giving thanks.  Thanking someone from the bottom of your heart for the wonderful way they have just expressed themselves to you.  If you are not open to receive, you are not open to expressing gratitude and gratitude is, IMHO, the real key to a happy life.  So open the door to receiving.  And have a very happy thanks giving.  Get it?  Word play kills me.

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WHY THE EMPEROR'S CLOTHES DON'T MATTER (UNLESS YOU THINK SO)

A few years ago, while in the middle of a conversation with my Mom featuring a lot of my trademark stating-the-obvious-in-a-big-mouthed-way she said, “You know, you always were my child who had to let everybody know the emperor has no clothes”.  Whew.  What you need to know, as far as backstory goes, is that this is a radical reframing of what I heard from her over and over again growing up…what I was told as a girl was that I always had to “add a little piss to the situation”.  So somehow I have morphed from piss-adder to truth teller over the last 40+ years.   At least in my mother’s perception.  It got me thinking a lot about the ideas of truth vs. perception and why stating the obvious can seem to be kind of pissy.  I have been called pathologically honest, and while it was meant as a compliment, I think we all know that pathology refers to illness and that the Greek root “pathos” means suffering.  So I “suffer” from an overwhelming compulsion to get on a chair and start shouting about the elephant in the room.  That’s me, in a nutshell.

And my Mom was right both times; I am a person who says what needs to be said to clear the air, and I am a person who can be incredibly impatient and pissy about it.  Case and point:  years ago I was asked by someone very nice if her outfit made her look fat and I answered, “It’s not the outfit.”  That was the truth, btw.  It was also a pretty wretched thing to say.  And not an isolated incident by any stretch.  A friend was recently relating a story of an older woman she knows who has taken to walking out of meetings when she feels they have become vitriolic or unconstructive.  She just gets up, gets her things and leaves without a word.  My response to this was that kind of behavior is a luxury of the very old and the very young.  When I was young, I was the sort who would huffily leave a room, a conversation, even a church sermon for self-righteous reasons.  In retrospect, my causes were just, my behavior was not.  Because when you get to the middle of your life, you realize that living your truth is the most important thing on earth you can do.  You also realize imposing your truth on others is one of the most destructive.

I, like you, have a point of view and a voice that yearns to be heard…I, like you, am offended by injustice and imbecilism, if that is a word.  I have very specific thoughts and opinions and feelings on virtually every topic under the sun, and there is nothing I love more than to share all of these in conversation, debate and even lecture form.  I want you to know that the emperor is, in fact, butt-naked and that yes, there is an elephant in the room.  What has changed as I have aged is that I no longer need you to feel the same way about any of it as I do.  I understand that context matters, as does personal perspective…maybe you live in a nudist colony, and the emperor looks alright to you; maybe you work for the circus and it is a perfectly reasonable thing to expect there to be an elephant in the room.  I understand that the only subjects in the entire world that I am the definitive authority on are me, myself and I.  Even those three things can tangle me up a bit occasionally.

When we are young, we think that our opinion is the most important thing in the whole wide world; when we grow up, we know our opinion is the most important thing in the world, but only as far as our world is concerned.  We shout our thoughts to others less, and listen to them more.  We begin to trust ourselves without the need for outside validation…we begin to understand that as we communicate our truth with more compassion for ourselves and others, we can be heard more clearly than if we use a bullhorn.  We also know that when our communication “falls on deaf ears”, that is okay.  We are all here as messengers, so where one of us fails, another will succeed.  We learn to choose our battles so much more wisely, realizing that sometimes “the truth” is the key to our freedom, and sometimes “the truth” is just beating a horse that is already dead.  We learn to walk away from situations where our truth is not productive or welcomed.

So here is my truth:  nobody is ever going to call me demure.  I am a big-mouth, and strong-willed.  I am full to the brim of opinions, both informed and intuitive, that I would love to overshare with you in a very loud way.  I am such an advocate for the elephant in the room that I might as well be the elephant myself…and I will make 100% certain that there is NO WAY you could ever overlook me.  But what I dislike more than anything is anyone who tries to make me feel uncomfortable in my own skin, with my own voice.  So I will try always, to the best of my ability, to honor you in your skin, with your voice.  You may look and sound different than I do, but inside we are the same.  Inside we are seekers who want to live in peace with ourselves and others.  My “truth” and your “truth” are not going to be exactly the same, any more than my idea of perfect happiness will be yours.  So whether or not the emperor has any clothes on is actually irrelevant.  What is relevant is whether or not you can live peacefully with an elephant in the room.  I know I can’t.  But it’s okay if that’s just me.

WHY YOU ARE READY!

Great news!  You are finally ready!!!  I am so happy for you and know everything is going to work out wonderfully!  You are being very brave and I totally applaud that, while at the same time knowing you have all the tools you need to succeed.  Go for it, and I will be cheering you on every second of the way!

So here’s the thing:  if you read those words and kind of got that sick pit of excitement in your stomach and started thinking specifically about something you’ve wanted to do but have been putting off for whatever various reasons?  Then I am 100% correct!  YOU ARE READY.  If on the other hand you were like, “WTF is she talking about?”, then my apologies.  As you were.  But it’s time for all of us to stop procrastinating in general, don’t you think?  No time like the present and there will always be reasons “why not” for you to fall back on.  But what I want you to know right now is this:  if there is a situation, job, relationship you want to get out of but feel you can’t?  YOU CAN and you are fully capable of not only doing so, but thriving elsewhere.  If there is a dream, invention, or business that you want to pursue but feel incapable of bringing to fruition?  You are MORE THAN CAPABLE, just put one foot in front of the other and off you will go.  Stop thinking so much about what you wish you were doing and start doing it.  Is that a clear enough instruction for you?

So now maybe a small number of you are thinking—“You know what?  She’s right!  The time is now and I am going to go for it!”—while most of you are thinking, “Yeah, right, Ms. Nike.  I’ll just do it and screw over everybody involved, including myself with my lack of planning and forethought”.   HA!  Love the “Ms. Nike” bit, you guys are very funny.  And of course to a degree you are correct…there is planning and forethought that need to happen before you make any kind of major move in your life.  So start planning already.  My point is that the obstacles you perceive outside of yourself are NOTHING when compared to the obstacles you face inside of yourself.  The problem isn’t that you’re too old or too poor or too dumb or too unorganized or too whatever-the-hell-you-think-you-are to achieve your objective.  The problem is that you THINK any of these things and let that thought decide the course of your future.  The biggest obstacle is, as I have said before, that you are more adept at building a case against yourself than for yourself.

When I was growing up, my Dad had a number of excellent lines that he applied, sometimes indiscriminately, to life situations both great and small.  One of his absolute favorites, something he said to all of us over and over was “This is it!  This is what you’ve been trained for!”  It was his general rallying cry, and he may have been talking about getting ready for church, a big test, or just as likely going on a lark.  My Dad preached readiness, no matter what the situation.  There was never a moment, big or trivial, that he felt we weren’t “trained for”, fully capable of achieving.  In fact, he said it so often that it became a kind of background noise, a given.  And as far as subconscious programming went, I think he did a pretty good job, because if I could think of one word that describes all of my siblings, it would have to be capable.  Nobody is throwing hands up in despair during tough times.  We are all right there being…well, tough.  Difficult to dismount.  Determined.  All in all, not too shabby.  That’s another one of Dad’s gems, btw.

“The Little Engine That Could” is not an enduring tale because we all love to be annoyed.  And that engine is very annoying.  It endures because we need to be reminded to believe in ourselves, not give up so easily on what we want.  I will now take that premise a step further:  not only are you READY, you were BORN to DO whatever it is you are thinking about doing.    I’m paraphrasing Joan of Arc here, just so you know…people thought she was crazy, too.  Fortunately, whatever YOUR “crazy” dream, plan or idea, we no longer burn people at the stake, so what is stopping you?  If Joan was not afraid, why are you?  That’s not a hypothetical question, so here’s the answer:  Joan was not afraid because she had faith.  That’s all you need to take the first step.  Faith.  In YOURSELF.  If you have that, everything else is just icing.  Don’t believe me?  Ask anyone who has accomplished a big dream.  Yes, there will be setbacks, yes there will be disappointments but you are READY for this, perhaps most of all.  Like Dad always said, “This is what you’ve been trained for”…to endure setbacks and disappointments and keep going anyway.  You’ve done it a million times before, why not do it for something that really matters to you, really counts?

Great news!  You are finally ready!!!  I am so happy for you and know everything is going to work out wonderfully!  You are being very brave and I totally applaud that, while at the same time knowing you have all the tools you need to succeed.  Go for it, and I will be cheering you on every second of the way!   I hope you can hear these words and know they are the truth.  You were born to do this, and I am really so very excited for you.  You are ready to be happy.

WHY YOU HAVEN'T RUINED ANYTHING

So the other day a friend of mine joked that he was going to call his autobiography, “The Lives I’ve Ruined”.  HA!  At least, I hope that was a joke.  But as a recovering perfectionist, it got me thinking a lot about that idea that things get “ruined” because of our actions…a cake, an event, a relationship…we say we “ruined” it by adding too much sugar or scheduling it on a day it rained or enabling bad behavior or behaving badly ourselves. 

I think the reality is that most things are pretty tough to ruin.  I guarantee you will find someone who thinks your ruined cake is delicious (or at the very least hilarious), your rainy wedding poetic and your “failed” relationship good riddance to bad trash.  Most good things are very hard to ruin, and to ruin a life is damned near impossible.  There goes the premise of my friend’s autobiography.  See, I ruined it for him.  Ha again.

I used to be the kind of person who never left the house without make-up.  Never let anyone see my house messy.  Never let anyone know they had hurt me, exposed my fear of not being lovable, not being good enough.  Perfectionism was recently redefined by Elizabeth “Eat, Pray, Love” Gilbert as “Fear, in really good shoes”.   I used to be afraid that if I was unkempt or messy or vulnerable, these obvious markers of my imperfection would declare me unlovable, worthless. 

I lived in a constant state of anxiety about “ruining” things and this anxiety caused me not only to screw up more, but also rendered me incapable of enjoying anything until it was completed and deemed by the royal me as a “success”.  Naturally I set the bar so high for what was “successful” or “clean” or “attractive”, I could rarely accomplish my objective, which would leave me with massive case of “aftershame”.    Eventually I realized it was my expectation that things go “perfectly” that was the real enemy.  Not the rain, the zit or the dust on my mantle.  It was the idea that anything less than perfect was “ruined”.

For example, as an achievement driven society, we tend to view marriage as a “goal” in a relationship; a long term marriage is a “success”, a marriage that ends in divorce is a “failure”.  Divorce means we “ruined” our marriage.  But not all relationships are meant to last forever. 

This message brought to you by a Cancer, stage three clinger if there ever was one.  Just ask any of the people who have been engaged in 20, 30 and in a few cases 40+ years of friendship with me:  I hang on for dear life.  Like the crab that is the symbol of my sun sign, once I attach I am very, very difficult to shake off.  

I am passionate in my friendships; in fact, I am passionate about all things I love, from people to places to movies to books and in a few rare cases even things.  But I have had to accept, fortunately again in a few rare cases, that some relationships are not built to last.  There is almost always some pain in this, but endings are actually new paths that open for us, paths that the relationship prepared us for and pushed us towards.  This is the gift of a “failed” relationship:  it sends you in a new direction that you never would have conceived of if you hadn’t come through it exactly the way you did.  It was a gateway to a new part of your life, a new part of you.

There is humor and wisdom in the expression, “There’s nothing worse than a reformed drunk”, because it reminds us to laugh at the hypocrisy of judgments.  Have you ever known a slob who becomes a self-righteous neatnik after living with a worse slob?  We see ourselves mirrored in our exchanges with other people and when we don’t like the reflection, it is our invitation to grow and change. ..“When the student is ready, a teacher appears”.   I think this applies to every single relationship you have in your life. 

But here’s the rub:  in each of those relationships you are BOTH teacher AND student.  We learn from each other, sometimes through joyful communion and sometimes…not so joyful.  The Buddhists believe it is the people who irritate us and push our buttons that we have the most to learn from.  There is an old legend about a man who was relocating to a new village and insisted on taking his worst and most insubordinate servant along.  When the head houseman questioned this decision his master told him he had heard the inhabitants of the new village were so pleasant he was afraid he would not have any opportunity for personal growth without him.  Love it!

So here is my conclusion:  you haven’t ruined anything.  If you are still breathing, you still have an opportunity to bring your best self to the table and live a life you feel good about.  That will mean a million different things to a million different people and that is how it is supposed to be.  We travel many roads with our various companions while we are here on earth, some of them more enjoyable than others, all of them crucial to the development of our true selves.  

 Like an irritant forms a pearl, we are honed into our best selves by the people who challenge us as much as those who love us.  We learn from each other and while we definitely will have preferences about the lessons we get, all of them are ultimately useful if we remember to see them that way.  Not a single thing you have done in your life has been in vain, because you (and/or someone else!) have learned from it.  You haven’t ruined anything.  You are on a journey and even if you sometimes feel lost, the destination is never in doubt.
  

WHY YOU GOTTA READ THE SIGNS

One of my favorite scenes in any movie ever is in the otherwise unexceptional film, “The Man with Two Brains”.  Steve Martin (LOVE!) plays a widower who becomes smitten with a femme fatale played by none other than her royal hotness, Kathleen Turner.  Out of respect for his deceased spouse, before proposing to his new lady Martin asks for permission to move on, beseeching his wife’s portrait to give him a sign about how she feels regarding his re-marriage. 

The portrait begins to spin and smoke, the house begins to shake and a disembodied voice begins wailing, “NOOO!!!  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”   When this commotions ends, Martin is left standing with his hair on end, face blackened with smoke, home in disarray.  And he says once more to the portrait, “Just any kind of sign…”

HA!  Funniest scene EVER.  And, less comically, the way many of us live our lives.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have watched people I care about drive their cars over the proverbial cliff because they failed to see the sign that said, “DANGER:  CLIFF AHEAD!” 

Even though that sign was posted on the dashboard.  In blinking, hot pink neon. 

Sound familiar???

As every parent knows, there is no greater enticement to most kids than the voice of experience and reason saying “That is a bad idea.”  We are ALL OF US driven on some level toward destructive behaviors, for both conscious and unconscious reasons.  This is why the ability to read the signs comes in so very handy.

I have heard it said that people announce to you who they are and what you can expect from them from your very first meeting.  Which is why it is hilarious that I failed to read the “sign” that a former boyfriend of mine wore on our first date.  Literally wore, on his chest.  Like Superman in reverse, the emblem he blazed on his sweatshirt was this:  YOU COULD DO WORSE. 

What followed was an extended period of on-again, off-again crazy-making nonsense, driven by his very low self-esteem and my very high need to “fix” things.  I could have done worse; he was not an addict, he didn’t hit me and he was a great cook.  But I could have done a lot better, if only I had read the sign that he so helpfully provided for me.

You may think this is an extreme example but I assure you, it is not.  I am not going to tell any tales out of school, but I could give you evidence in abundance of people I know who not only failed to recognize a sign this obvious, but in fact failed to acknowledge multiple signs more obvious, even when they were literally being beaten over the head with them. 

But signs can be positive, too.  We miss these less often; still they can be easily overlooked. 

Have you ever had a person who keeps showing up in your life?  You run into them at the grocery store, the library, the park?  What do you do with this?  Do you dismiss it as a funny coincidence or do you see it as a sign that maybe this person might be a good choice to deliberately spend time with?  Or have you ever been wondering about some decision you have to make, only to turn on the radio and hear a song that speaks directly to your dilemma?  It’s a sign, if you will hear it.

Ultimately, the hardest thing about the signs is watching others ignore the obvious to their own detriment.  One litmus test I have used in conversations with people I love about choices they are making that are causing them pain:  if you were a character in a book or a movie (like “The Man with Two Brains”!), what would you think of your behavior?  Is your character a good guy or a bad guy?  Is your character wise or foolish? 

When you look at the "story” of your life objectively, can you identify the behaviors and choices that are wreaking havoc, or are you convinced that you have no choice but to “stay the course”, even though you are unhappy with it?  While it is important to maintain compassion for your “character”, it is also crucial to your well-being to assess the situation honestly in order to follow the signs you may have been deliberately avoiding. 

If you were hiking in an unknown forest, would you ignore the signs that help keep you from getting lost?  If not, why do you ignore them in real life, an unknown forest if there ever was one!

The signs are everywhere.  In fact, signs are big business!  Go into any gift shop in this country and you will see signs galore, signs designed to announce something about who you are:  a cat or dog lover, a fisher, a golfer, a banjo player or a drinker of wine…you can purchase a sign that says just about anything you want. 

People buy these signs and hang them in their homes to let those who visit know something about them, not unlike my ex’s sweatshirt.  We like to announce who we are through tweeting, texting, blogging, posting and status updates—we extend to the world the courtesy of knowing what to expect from us and what not to expect from us.  Then other people can read our signs and act on the information we have provided...or ignore it.  Which one seem smarter to you, when put that way? 

The signs are everywhere!  You walk when the sign says walk, you stop when the sign says stop; this works for you, so why not expand on this behavior and see what happens?  I’ll bet you anything it is all good.

 

WHY I TRUST REJECTION

You should see the looks I get when I say this:  “I TRUST rejection”.  Whew, they run the gamut, from flabbergasted to skeptical to admiring to (dare I say it?) REJECTING.  Most people frankly can’t quite process it at first, probably because it sounds so self-defeating and un-American.  Americans don’t know the meaning of the word rejection!!!  Rejection is our cue to TRY HARDER, WORK MORE and CHASE FASTER!!!  And if all else fails, you cannot reject me because I REJECT YOU!!!!!  Ha, it sounds silly when I put it that way, doesn’t it?  Like life is a comic book instead of a precious commodity.  Rejection to most of us feels like a signal to ramp up the SMASH! POW!  BAM in our comic book lives, and REALLY SHOW THEM!  Really show them that we are NOT rejection material, especially if we can lose some weight, start working out or maybe somehow become more lovable.

Groucho Marx once famously said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”  This is a humorous illustration of the sad fact that many of us don’t believe who we are and what we have is good enough.  That is why we spend so much time (and money) acquiring things: a bigger house, a nicer car, clothes with fancy labels, Facebook “likes”.  We want approval and PROOF of our value, like somehow a human soul is a quantifiable commodity that can be measured by external standards.   Rejection is an unacceptable experience, a judgment to disprove, something to overcome.  But I lived in L.A. for years and in case you have never had the pleasure, let me tell you L.A.’s bread and butter IS rejection.  If you live in L.A., you are constantly receiving the message that you are NOT good enough; you are not talented enough, pretty enough, thin enough, cool enough.  Your boobs are too small, your nose is too big, your script is too indie, your song is too country, your audition too out there.  Whatever it is, you just know you are fundamentally NOT RIGHT.  Until the day you decide that you are.

Because life is not a movie, there was no big moment when this happened for me; no parting of the clouds, no mystical wise person to guide me, no life changing relationship, job, or accomplishment that taught me to love myself as is.  It happened over time in a million moments; I had to learn some lessons a hundred times before they stuck, while a few came like a lightning bolt.  But even the lightning bolt realizations had to be reinforced.  I gradually came to understand that not only do things “happen for a reason”, but also DON’T “happen for a reason” and this reason is the best reason going:   it is not right for you.  Most of us have been dumped by a person we thought we loved…we learn that when love is not a two way street it may still be love but it is NOT a relationship.  Most of us have lost out on jobs we thought we wanted, houses we tried to buy, maybe even clubs we yearned to join.  In many cases, time teaches us that there was a better job, house or club for us.  So why not skip waiting to know that, and just assume it immediately?

When you lose a job that is supporting you and possibly others, it is hard to wrap your head around the idea that it is for the best and there is something better out there for you.  But the fact that income is necessary to life makes it impossible to wallow for too long; you call headhunters, you look on Craig’s list, you hit the pavement, whatever.  And generally speaking you find that next job, whether sooner or later, and all’s well that ends well.  But relationships are trickier, aren’t they?  When we get dumped, left, REJECTED we tend to sink into it.   And people will support us in wallowing in a way they NEVER would if we did it over a lost job.  This is kindness.  But we hear a lot of the same things we would hear about the lost job:  “You are better off because you were not appreciated/valued and YOU DESERVE MORE.”  Yet we have been programmed to believe that it is in fact the club that REJECTS us that is more desirable.   That the rejection proves they are “too good” for us and therefore we need to fight to prove our worthiness.  

I say this is more comic book logic. Nothing should be less interesting to you than someone who is not interested in you.  Really. We have all read accounts of people who seem to have it all yet are clearly not happy, however this manifests.  Divorce, addiction, violence…people are attracted to stories of woe involving the rich and famous  because they tell them something they want to hear but can never quite believe:  fame, money, beauty and recognition are not magical elixirs.  These external markers cannot quiet the internal voices.  If you are not fundamentally happy with yourself, there is nothing you can add to your outside that will make you so, NOTHING.  But if you are okay with who you are, there is nothing that can happen to you that will convince you otherwise, NOTHING.  That is why I say, I accept rejection and can even be grateful for it.  You are saving me a lot of paddling upstream and banging my head against a wall.  If I don’t seem like a good thing to you, if you are not interested in me as I am, then that is okay.  I am glad to be myself, with or without you.  But I do LOVE a club that will have me as a member!  That’s when I know I am where I belong.
 

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WHY COMPLAIN WHEN YOU COULD CRITICIZE?

I love to complain.  It is a long held habit that I truly enjoy for so many excellent reasons.  For one, I am really, really good at it.  We all enjoy the feeling of mastery, and I have mastered the art of complaining, honed it to a razor sharp edge that cuts right through the bullshit to the heart of the matter:  a lot about our world sucks.  Does that seem harsh?  If you think so, you and I could probably never be friends.  Because as much as I value the ability to accentuate the positive, I value the ability to see what is really screwed up even more.

Of course we all know what I like to call “the wrong kind” of complainer, those people who pretty much exclusively complain about the same things over and over every day until they have drained you of every single bit of compassion you might have ever felt for them.   These people are energy vampires who herald their own powerlessness in the face of such atrocities as “the DMV” and “the speed limit” and “the weather”.   They don’t quite grasp the usefulness of online registration, obeying the law or umbrellas, so they come up against disasters on a regular basis, and this is not only exhausting to hear about, it’s also catastrophically boring.  And the worst part for me, these whiners give complaining a bad name!

If at this point you are wondering which kind of complainer YOU are, I will give you a helpful hint:  if you feel energized and invigorated by your complaining, you are my kind of complainer!  If you complain to people who actually may be able to help you rectify the situation you are complaining about, you are my kind of complainer!  And most importantly, if you also utilize the complaint’s oh-so-effective cousin, criticism, then you are my kind of complainer!  Rejoice, you are impacting both your world and your blood pressure in very positive ways!

As much fun as complaining is, criticism is just that much better, because not only are you pointing out a situation that leaves a lot to be desired, you are offering a potential solution.  For example, if your husband asks you where the mayonnaise is and you tell him (probably for the 400^th time) that it is in the refrigerator, there is a pretty good chance he will assure you that he has already looked, because it  is a fairly obvious location for this condiment.  So you will go to look for yourself, and inevitably you will find the mayo just where it always is (or on rare occasion, slightly obscured by the ketchup bottle) and now you are faced with some choices. 

Will you go ahead and make your husband’s sandwich, because you are up now anyhow?  Or will you complain that you “have to do everything around here” and then make his sandwich?  Or will you tell him that he is as lazy as he is blind and that opening the fridge is not the same as actually moving your eyes from side to side and scanning the contents, and then slam the jar on the counter and storm off?  It’s up to you obviously, but I choose number three.  Because as good as I am at complaining and criticizing, I might be even more skilled at storming off.

 The point I am making here is that what is complaining and criticizing but the savory marriage of identifying a problem and offering a solution?  What could be more productive and positive than that?  If I complain “I have to do everything around here”  I have identified a problem that certainly needs to be rectified. 

But then if I further offer the solution of moving one’s eyes from side to side when the refrigerator is open to scan its contents, I have now taught you a life skill that will serve you most excellently well.  And how can this be a bad thing?  Life has just potentially gotten a little better for us both, what with me not running wild goose chases and you with your mobile eyeballs (these come in handy for so much more than scanning for food, I promise you that).

Pretending there are no problems in the world seems to me the silliest and most counterproductive of options.  The world is full of problems, and this is why we actually have something to do with ourselves every day.  The more problems we identify and fix, the easier and happier life becomes.  And it all starts with a complaint.  The sound of that first whine starts the cosmic ball rolling, and who knows where a well-placed criticism can take it next.  So come on, do your part!  Make a complaint today!  And if someone complains to you and there is any way in your power to make that person’s complaint go away, just do it.  We’re all in this together, and if you oil a squeaky wheel today, you have just brought us all a little closer to heaven.