I was working and writing away last night, as I am wont to do, when I looked at the time. What in the world? It was 4:15. How had that happened?
Oh yeah. It hadn’t. Well, not really. My computer jumped ahead when I wasn’t paying attention.
For the rest of the day, every time I looked at a clock, momentary confusion grabbed hold of my mind and relaxed when I reminded it that I was actually in control and aware of the time change. It will take nearly a week for me to stop translating what time my body thinks it is to what time it actually is.
Now … this isn’t the point of the post, though it’s what sent my mind off and wandering. Oddly enough, my thoughts wandered over into the ugly yellowish-brown land of complainers.
There have been a great many posts complaining about the continuation of Daylight Savings Time. Complaints, fury, annoyance, on and on. Because posts on FB and Twitter about this are so danged effective (cough, cough, ahem).
This is one of my pet peeves that I do my best to avoid, though admittedly sometimes I fail. I can not bear complaints about things that we can’t change or won’t work to change. It’s a negative and useless method of communication.
Leaders of any organization will tell you that listening to complaints is one of their biggest time-sucks. Not only does it waste incredible amounts of time, but they have to overcome the drain – the strain of that negative conversation in order to move on and do something good. It’s huge and destructive to the health of organizations and people do not understand that.
I remember speaking to a pastor friend about some things that were driving me nuts – things that needed to be changed so the church could grow, get healthy, become more connected to the community. The one thing I promised was that I would never complain about something I wasn’t willing to dig in and help fix. Unless I had a healthy response to my own concerns, they were nothing more than whiny complaints. We’d already heard too much whining and complaining from people on the outside of the issues, who only showed up at moments of crisis, but never participated in anything else. Not something I want to emulate.
Caveat: speaking with customer service about a problem, contacting your congressperson with what you believe, actively participating in movements for change (or against change as the case may be for you) … those are not examples of unproductive complaining.
Back to Daylight Savings Times. Would I prefer that we just live in the time frame we are given? Yeah. Probably. Am I willing to start a movement? Not so much. So … while I might whine about the confusion that my poor addled brain has to suffer through twice a year, complaining about how that elusive *someone* should change this is a ridiculous waste of words, effort and time. As it is for nearly anything we choose to complain about, by the way.
My words (numerous as they may be) are more important to me than to be used in a negative manner. I want the words you read from me to lift you up … to lift me up.
And I want to read words from you that …
– fill my heart with joy
– challenge me to be better
– tell me who you are
– tell me your dreams
– ask about my dreams
– share your life
– explore struggles we overcome
– bring light to the world
– make us laugh
– make us cry
– lift our spirits
– bring goodness to the world
– set the bar higher
– restore faith in humanity’s goodness
The next time we’re ready to complain about something in a public forum … what if we were to step back and ask how effective our communication will be. I’m guessing we could come up with something much better to say.
…and that’s my rant for the month.
