Monday, June 29, 2009

MOANING

I think it is true that it takes less time to act – right the wrong and do something about your problem – than to moan. However, I suspect some people just love to moan.

A woman in the Ladies room moaned. She looked at two cubicles, and said, “Why is it that people did not flush properly?” I had looked at them before she entered the Ladies and there are some tissues unflushed in the bowls. That’s it. It’s nothing like public toilets in Jakarta that requires some skill of blocking your nose - and eyes- while doing your business.

I said to her, “Why don’t you just flush them? They are not really dirty, just some tissues in the bowls.” Then she started the whole art of moaning. “Yeah, but if I flush before, then there won’t be enough water for myself to flush… bla…bla… bla..” I did not reply, just walked to the two cubicles and flushed the toilets. Job done in two seconds. She stopped moaning and my ears stop hurting.

That was one short moan.

I have heard a lot more annoying moan. The episode would last from 30 minutes up to four hours, as long as we let them talk. “My life is a mess, my children are rubbish, my house looks like what’s left of The Titanic, my job is shit, I’m depressed.” Now that is one serious moan. The sad fact is, there are so many serious moaners like this among us earthlings.

This one requires a whole week course on SWOT (strength weakness opportunity threat) analysis and another month course on personal management. Reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey would be a good start. Although for a serious moaner like this, the full expensive course run by Covey’s licensed company might still be useless.

I suspect serious moaners are moaning just for the sake of it. They like to get attention and to make other people responsible for their own problems. They like to repeat. Something like, “Oh Dear, you cannot believe how stressful I am. I have to work everyday, and then clean up the house. My teenage children do not help at all. Then I have to cook and feed them, not that they cannot prepare their own dinner. It's always me who have to do everthing. I am so stressed.”

Listening to this, we can only nod. And then he/she will start the next paragraph which contain the exact same problem, “Oh, I am so stressful. Someone need to tell my children that they have to help out at home. I am the only one who work. They just stay home all day making mess, they do not clean up, they do not was up. Oh dear, I am so stressful, my doctor prescribed me a lot of anti depressant but they do not help.”

These types of serious moaners are usually adults – over 30s – who we expect to be mature. What worse is, when the moaners are parents. I really don’t understand some human beings. We were born with instinct just like birds and monkeys. We have natural instinct to survive, to help our children fledge their nests, we have simple logic to solve problems.

For serious heavy weight moaners, life is about themselves. Every single problem is there to add misery to their lives. They do not watch the news, because the news will show them that others have more serious problems than themselves. Serious moaners thinks the universe evolve around her/him.

Let’s analyse the example above. This moaner complaint on having to work everyday. Anything extra ordinary about having to work? I don’t think so. So the job is shit. Has she/he tried to apply for another job? Has she/he ever think that maybe it’s her/his own attitude that’s shit? Then her/his children are not helping at home. Well, did this moaner parent ask them – or give them order – to do the dishes and to clean up the house?

The next question is who brought them up and educated them from baby to teenagers? Did she/he teach them how to make up their own bed, wash up the dishes, iron their own clothes? Does she/he think they can do the house chores automatically when they are over 16 without being taught how to?

I really cannot understand serious moaners like this. So everyone has to work. Every parent has to deal with the mess kids left. But then, every parent has the responsibility to teach the children how to clean up their mess!

Ha! Now I am the moaner!

But I do have an action plan on how to deal with moaners. And more, my “hot to deal with moaners” formula have been tested several times. It works for me.

For light weight moaners like the lady with the unflushed toilet, just show her/him the simple action to fix the problem. Then say, “There you go. No problem now, nothing to moan about. Bye!”

As for heavy weight moaners who claimed to have a shit life, well.. I could only say, “Have you DONE this? Did you DO that? Why not? Why not try…” And then if all advice did not work, just write about it, do the written moaning like a diary.

Phew…. It’s good to do a written a moan! Enjoy your day, your hour, your minutes, your seconds. Because for every single problem that you have, there is someone out there having ten times bigger problem than you…!