If You Choose Misery, Don't Whine About It

I feel like every time I go online now, all I see is people complaining about their lives. Social media has given people this great platform to push their personal interests and passions. It gives them an audience to share their ideas, motivations, and achievements. But, of course, rather than use this power for good, people use it to whine like fucking crazy. If I am scrolling through my newsfeed and look at 20 status posts, I can guarantee you that the vast majority of them will be complaints.

Don’t get me wrong- I believe that everyone has the god given right to complain about their lives and whine a little about the trials and tribulations that come their way. It’s therapeutic to vent, I am a true believer of that. What I absolutely do not understand though is when people endlessly complain about things that are completely under their own control.

There are things in my life right now that I am not thrilled about. I’d like to be living in a nice one-bedroom apartment. I’d like to be further in my career. I wish I was finished with my education. I wish I made more money. I wish I could quit my job to travel.  I wish I had a puppy. The list goes on. Everyone has things they would like to change. However, some of these things that I would change are out of my hands, at least for the moment. I am trying to pay for my education, bills, a decent car that I finally got, etc. This means that spending the money to go get some fancy apartment right now doesn’t really make financial sense. This is a decision that I have consciously made for myself.  Sure, if I left school, I could make enough to go get a nicer apartment. I could have it if I wanted it. But I made a decision to invest in my education and financial future.

So what? Since this was a purposeful decision on my part, I have no right to complain about my lack of apartment! It was something that I chose! This has taken away my justification to go on Facebook and post daily messages complaining about my living situation.   There are times where this decision is frustrating, and I will vent a bit to friends and family, but whining endlessly about something that I chose is ridiculous.

I’ll give you another example. My friend owns an apartment in the city. He lives with roommates, but does own this large place himself. It’s in a nice area and is a beautiful place. But he does not want to live in the city anymore. Now, if he was a broke college kid who really had no option but to stay in their cheap rented room, then I would be completely understanding. Moving is an extremely long and expensive process, especially if you are planning to move a significant distance away, as he was.  But he’s not a broke college kid. He has the time, money, flexibility, resources, and complete ability to move wherever he wanted. But he doesn’t! Instead he chooses to sit in his house, and everyday complains about how he wants to get out of the city, despite the fact that he has every resource to do so.  He is choosing to be miserable. He is choosing to keep the situation he whines about. I have absolutely no patience or sympathy for him, or people like him.

I find that the people who complain the most often have the most trivial problems. Those who have actually muddled through tough issues have matured, and learned to better cope with our problems most of the time. If you are going through a genuine struggle, you typically don’t want the attention that broadcasting it to the universe will create. So next time you go to type a negative Facebook status, or are about to complain to your friend about your troubles over coffee, think about whether this is an issue that you can fix. If you chose it, or if you have the ability to change it, then what are you waiting for? If you spent half the time and energy you did whining on working on your problems, you would probably have nothing left to whine about.( And maybe that’s why you don’t fix it- but that’s another story.) And if you choose to stay in a situation you are unhappy with, come to grips with the fact that you are then giving up your right to whine about it. It’s you own damn fault.

Tough situations don’t last, tough people do.