JOIN USComplaining and whining require little effort. Exhibiting acceptance and tolerance on the other hand is much of a Herculean task. This perhaps explains why the vast majority of us take up the armour of whining when things do not go our way.
But the pitfall is that, nothing good comes from whining. When we succumb to whining, we diminish our possibility, denigrate our own credibility, belittle the efforts of others, create a rippling effect of more whining in the world and worst of all forget the many blessings that come our way.
Author Kent Crockett, in his book, I once was blind but now I squint, gives an interesting account of his friend who lived on the coast of Florida a few miles from Kennedy Space Center.
He writes: I told him, “It must be fun watching the space shuttle launches and going to the beach all the time.”
“I never go to the beach,” he replied. “I don’t even go outside my house to watch the space shuttle launch.”
“You’re kidding me. Why?” I asked.“I’ve seen them so many times it’s no big deal.” He then adds on to say: when we see the same blessings every day, we eventually stop noticing them.
When we stop noticing, we quit appreciating. When we quit appreciating, we stop thanking. When we stop thanking, we start complaining.Complaining thus is the byproduct of ingratitude. It flows from an empty spirit, one that can never be satiated reasonably.
Behind the voice that whines often resides a meek personality, estranged and desolate in life. He is suffused with a negative and hopeless attitude. On the contrary he who seems to get along is the one whose personality abounds with a positive approach.
The story is told about little Johnny who was looking out on the street through the big end of a telescope.
His dad corrected him: Son that is not the way you look through a telescope. If you look through it that way, you make the objects look much smaller.
A telescope is to make things look bigger. Johnny’s quick riposte was: Daddy, the bully who is always
beating me up is out on the street. I turned the telescope around because he is my main problem and I want to see him smaller than he really is!
The magnitude of our problems depends on which side of the telescope we use to view our daily woes. Seen from the small end of the telescope, our frustrations will seem enlarged.
Conversely viewed from the big end of the telescope our troubles will shrivel and become irrelevant.
As the experts say: If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude and stop whining!