Negativism and the act of complaining

The question is WHEN is negativism and the act of complaining too much. This post comes after another collegue told me how she felt my counterpart is too complain-y. It's a long story. But to sum it up, the truth is that collegue is REALLY negative and complain-y about stuff. But think the other just concluded that after half year plus personal interactions. Seriously IF I had thought I was negative and complain-y during my time as an educator under bond, she takes the cake.

I am careful NOT to let the negativism get to me by choosing just to let stuff go one ear in and out the other ear. I remind myself to be appreciative of my job with the pretty decent pay and working hours plus the perk of having free time to do stuff like monitoring stocks, though I can't trade, do other stuff plus little or no admin work nor OT nor have to bring work home nor is anything at the back of my head once I walk out of the workplace. I only turn on the work-mode once I open the laptop at work. Also music calms the savage or bored beast.

I have learnt in the period of time that I was unemployed, to be grateful for small things, to be contented with some things and Not just compare everything and expect everything to live up to one's expectations. Of course these all didn't come to me in a flash, I had to really dig at my psyche to extract issues that really bothers me, the things that Really makes me happier, the things that I Now have and should be grateful for, and also what sort of achievements I wanted to work on; not according to other's measure of success, BUT according to my own sense of what is success for me realistically and also how I might work towards the greats, even though I am starting realistically. For me, when there is nothing more to look forward in Life, it really makes life dull, boring and a dread. What many fail to realize is that nobody but yourself can define what are the things one should look forward to, dream about.

Don't try too hard to live up to other people's nor society's expectations. You are no longer in school. Already graduated and earning own pay. The need to live up to "parental" expectations is there to guide in the earlier years but once earning own pay, we should move out of this "what-others-think-matters" so much more than what we think. As pong as I am not doing anything illegal, there's nothing wrong to value own health more, value own free time after work, pursuing a passion pushed aside in favor of realistic work, to start and develop new hobbies and passion, to remake one's perspective and parts of the personality for the better. To rely more on oneself to define who you are, be comfortable with that.
To be able to look back at decisions and say "Yup, I wouldn't have done it any other way."

But these comes from taking ownership of one's life. Recognize that there are limitations everywhere even yourself, yet there are aspects one can control and work on. There are things that no matter how much u try, it can't nor be easily changed eg work systems but there arethings in your control; how am I going to approach the situation, the thoughts and attitude I would adopt. Think that is important. If finally, things still can't be changed, either u reject and leave or learn to live with it with certain compromises.

That's the way I deal with many things now. I find I am not stressed about much things. Take it a day at a time, don't let things get to me easily, continue to work on areas and goals that I deem important (irregardless of other's opinion), and continue to 'enjoy' and 'find joys' in each day that comes. Even if not new 'adventures' come, so long as I find it 'fruitful', 'accomplished' even at tiny, non-existent thing like, I finished my work, I came home earlier, managed to help out, all means something to me. THAT makes me happy, feeling happy. Small things like these defines happiness according to what you value.

Even when feeling down, there's exercise, family and friends, tonnes of stuff to work off the negativism. Don't end up complaining just for the sake of complaining, that's the bad habit I think that collegue has. Don't let negativity creep up and sap the energy at work or outside work. Recognize if you are the one being negative to a situation or is the situation Really so negative? Many a times, it's we who react negatively to a neutral/positive situation. Recognizing this can help one adjust the attitude away from being negative.

Needless to say, there's already too much negativity in our lives, since young through the education system where ouristakes are highlighted but not the good parts. We hardly praise ourselves, we try to earn praises from others. We try to live up to high expectations which seems to be built mainly on other's high expectations and fail at times. Nobody celebrates the mistakes, no one praise you for standing up after a fall. The real thing is people don't get praised for alot of things, we can live with it and learn to be alright with some self-praise and less of such 'hard-to-get' praises.

No worries for me. I am still more positive person despite having to hear all the trival complaints about almost everything under the sun, from food disliked to dislike of certain way of doing things, to sleepiness and more. So long as I recognize my own feelings and thoughts, such won't affect me much, would forget after listening type. Though I would like to listen to positive things after too much of it and that's where music saves me.

I think everyone has their own grouses, and we do at times air our complaints to get support, advise, comments from others. BUT when it's all purely about grousing, and leaving the issues untouched, repeating same grouse over and over and over again, one better be careful not to irk those who have to put up with it and be wary of falling into this 'cycle' of negativism that breeds even more negativism.