Reply to Why do you whine and complain?

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Why do you whine and complain?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I complain or discuss negative aspects of my life more than others. I asked my therapist about it. She saw no issue. She says I grew up in an east coast culture that does it more. I was living and interacting with more western-US people who don’t.

I told her I think my culture does it more because ‘that’s the interesting stuff.’ So I have a good life, so I want to talk about the stuff that isn’t. That’s where there’s interest and nuance and questions to mull over with other people.

I wish others would do it more. [/quote]

I'm from the western US and I'm like you. Though I never felt like I fit in there. Though even after moving out east, I still feel like talking about negative things is frowned upon here. I think there's an American imperative to be positive and upbeat that makes people averse to negativity. I have found I get along well with people from Asia and Europe, where I think there is more of an acceptance of negativity.

For me, talking about negative issues is a way of working through them. But I wouldn't even frame it as "complaining" most of the time. More like acknowledging and discussing. I have noticed many people view any mention of a negative issue as an invitation for "fixing" the issue, but often I am talking about something that doesn't need fixing and might not even be "bad" just difficult or hard to accept. But I've learned that many people struggle with the idea of simply accepting negative things in your life.

I do think there is greater acceptance of negativity as you get older, because people are more likely to encounter negative things they cannot change. For instance I've noticed in the last few years that some of my friends have started complaining/venting about elderly parents more, and are more accepting of talking about the challenges of having very old and sometimes sick older parents. This is not something anyone can fix. Our parents will not become younger or healthier if we just work at it. Also many of them have mental health or behavioral issues that are getting worse with age, and once your parents are in their late 70s, you have to kind of accept this is who they are -- they are simply too old to change some of these behaviors and odds are good they'll get worse over time, not better. This is a subject where I find people are increasingly willing to just sit and "whine and complain" about our parents for a bit as a form of catharsis, with the understanding that we are just blowing off steam about something challenging about life that cannot be fixed or perfected. I agree it is a healthy approach to frustrating things over which you have little power.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics