Saturday, January 12, 2008

Complaining about nothing

The need to complain is something very common in my home country, from my experience abroad I would say it is not restricted to my country :P.
I have a strong notion that I shouldn't complain about my life, yet at times I feel the need to do it. Why is this I wonder? For me is the feeling of incompleteness, I know I have a lot to be thankful for, a good life, from anybody else's point of view I am doing great, so why don't I feel it?
Different people have different notions of a good life, while some of us might be happy with one type of cheese (yes another reference to the book "who moved my cheese"), even two, some of us aren't, and the fact there are more types out there makes our minds wonder of different tastes for life, never feeling really complete. The fact is we dream of the cheese to end this craving, to feel the void, and to be fair like in the book, the quest is also fun.
The trick is to know this, that we are in this quest, doesn't help us dealing with the need to complain, the need for someone else to validate our lack of happiness. I hate this thought, that we need to validate ourselves with others, yet it is the only way to get validation, otherwise you only have yourself to hold on to.
During today a thought came to my mind, I know it sounds simple, but still...
What if instead of complaining, we just lived, stop feeling sorry for ourselves. How? Simple try complaining to one who's life is really shit, some friends of mine went to Mozambique, for those who don't know is a country in Africa, they are medical doctors just graduated, and went for two weeks to help orphan kids, try telling these kids how bad you have it, how fucking depressing your life is. See how ridiculous you feel then. I did just by thinking about it today, a fucking joke, me complaining.
The fact is our problems are always the biggest in the world, and we ignore when hurting other worlds, of other people who are in real pain. I'm not minimizing our pain, because I do feel this incompleteness which drives me slowly into insanity.
As a smart person one needs to be able to separate realities, but sometimes looking through other perspectives does help to solve our problems, and see what really matters.
In the end only one question needs to be answered, what do you want out of life, but really really want?

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I don't agree that we're complaining about nothing. I'm not stupid, i realise there are millions of people in the world who are far far worse off than me...but everything is relative and our own problems are always going to be the most important problems in our lives. I think that comparing to others is a bad idea...it just makes me feel selfish for feeling bad, and then i feel even worse and even more depressed. i think putting my problems into perspective is pretty much the worst thing i can do...