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I Just Spent a Whole Hour Blogging… Ugh

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I think that about 99% of the words that come out of my mouth are complaints. I’m constantly complaining. I complain about the weather, about my apartment, about my friends, about people I love, about life, about the kid in class who talks a little loud when he answers questions, and even about God. If I start a conversation with you and my first line isn’t a question, chances are I’m about to complain. Even when I ask a question, I’m normally just setting myself up for a complaint. Like if I was talking to my friend in Arizona, I might ask “Hey how’s the weather in Arizona?” Because, invariably it’s going to be nicer than Ohio weather, and then I get to complain, and that’s nice.

I’m not all that sure why I complain so much. I think mostly I don’t know what else I would talk about. And the thing is I don’t really even have negative thoughts about that many things. Sometimes I just make up complaints so that I have something to talk about. I do this often with people I’m trying to impress, especially girls. “Oh yeah, I had to read (fill in with awesome old epic poem/philosopher/theology/narrative) over the weekend. Such a pain, right?” WRONG! I love reading. I love reading old stuff. I’m a freakin’ English major. The funny thing about this is that it almost always backfires, especially when I’m around people who are excited about life (the kind of people I like to associate with). They just skip over my complaint, perhaps even commenting on how much they like the item in question, and then I just feel stupid.

But I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And I think I complain for two major reasons:

1. I fear being perceived as serious.
If I am constantly complaining, then no one will actually know what I’m passionate about. I can’t be called a failure because I don’t really care about anything I’m doing because if I cared, I wouldn’t complain. I would be excited. I would tell people how awesome it is that I get to read great literature as part of my studies. I would tell people how great it is that I got to spend two hours talking to the friend I hadn’t seen in a while, instead of the one hour we had planned on.  I would tell people that I loved the rain even when I don’t have an umbrella because it reminds me of that scene from V for Vendetta when “God is in the rain.”

2. I want affirmation.
I want people to tell me how great I am. When I say things like “Girls aren’t interested in me,” I’m looking for people to tell me all the reasons why girls should be interested in me. Bonus points if there are specific names involved. When I say I’m not good enough for a position, I’m looking for people to tell me that of course I am. And when I complain about something outside myself, like a political ideology or a specific person’s thoughts on a topic, I’m looking for whoever is listening to tell me that I am a better person than the person/thing I’m complaining about.

This is all really ugly and sad and makes me miserable. It’s hard walking around in a world all day that you have to pretend you don’t like. And the scary thing about complaining is if you don’t stop, eventually you will start to believe that the world is miserable.  I read so many blogs, meet so many people, see so many news programs that are obsessed with the negatives – with what’s wrong in the world. But there is so much good going on in the world. I believe people respond to positive reinforcement – that if we actually have a legitimate complaint against someone, the best way to go about fixing it is to compliment the person on the other things you like about him or her.

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Words are Sticks and Stones

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Let’s compare two different sayings about speech. First, the ever popular, Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. And then this, lesser known one: “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” That last one is from Solomon’s Proverbs. All the Proverbs are pretty good. You should read them, like now. Seriously. Stop wasting your time reading my blog, find a copy of Solomon’s Proverbs, and read them. And then come back if you want to.

All my life, I’ve been someone who is hurt by words. I’m hurt by words even when people have no intention of hurting me with words. And for a long time, I thought that made me weak. I never had a broken bone from either sticks or stones, but words always hurt me. People would always tell me that I should stop caring what other people thought about me, as if it was a disease. And if I just took the cure of not caring, I would become a healthier person.

And so I learned how to use sarcasm. People were sarcastic with me, and I was sarcastic back because I thought that was what was expected of me. Sarcasm drifted into all of my relationships. My romantic relationships, my relationship with my brother, my relationships with my parents, my friends, my acquaintances. But I wasn’t all that good at sarcasm. If sarcasm was an actual language (like some people say it is), I was nowhere near fluent so a lot of times I would just give up and be sincere with people. And that’s where you start to get into trouble. Because when you are sincere with people, human nature is to start expecting people to be sincere with you. (My psych professor tells me that is why Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud stopped being friends – Jung was mad that Freud wouldn’t open up to him.)

The verse from Proverbs is always reentering my life. I think about it a lot. Because the truth is that words hurt. And they hurt everyone. Not just me. It took me a long time to figure that out because people don’t like showing that they are hurt by words, but they are. I think the first relationship where I eradicated sarcasm fully was with my brother. It took time, and it was hard at times, but my brother and I hardly ever are sarcastic with each other now, and it’s brought us really close. It’s amazing how deep a relationship can go when you are honest about how much you care about each other and what you like and dislike about each other without the veil of sarcasm.

The horrible thing about sarcasm is that once you start, you think it’s a way of life, that it’s natural. And so even when you are conscious about it, it pops up every once in a while and stabs people you care about. I stab my parents with sarcasm all the time. And I hate that.

A very close friend and I communicate almost solely through sarcasm. And it’s horrible because it escalates and escalates until one of us says something that is really hurtful, and then it feels like we may not be able to talk to each other anymore. I recently admitted to her that I can’t communicate in that way anymore, that it hurts me and that I know it hurts her. And it was hard because I felt like I was being weak. But it seems silly to choose to live in the range of swords when you can be in a peaceful meadow instead.

I know it’s going to be tempting to say something sarcastic in response to this post. But I challenge you to actually think about it, and to respond sincerely.

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Leadership as Servitude

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As I’ve mentioned once before, I help with a Writer’s Workshop for middle school students. It’s rewarding work. And I am blessed to be able to work with these young people so often. This past Friday we were finishing up our acrostic name poems. We work with them in the school’s library. The volunteers are waiting for the students as they come in and so we watch them group off to the several library tables. Most of the time, this is done down strict gender lines. This Friday was no different. The girls giggled into their respective corners. And the guys guffawed into theirs.

I like to change up who I work with so I can start to get a feel for tailoring instruction methods to different groups of students. This week, I targeted the boys’ table full of the class clowns. Two of them weren’t even finished with the rough drafts of their acrostics. The third was rather above and beyond where he needed to be. I sat down and introduced myself and then waited. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of these kids if I tried to force feed it. So I sat there and watched how they interacted, trying to catch on to their inside jokes and get a feel for their slang and junior high jargon.

After a couple of minutes, I had a rough sketch of how they interacted as a group, what made them tick as individuals and what was holding them back, and then I started instructing. Boy number one, the most creative of the group, was held back by his need to be the class clown, which he mostly achieved by self-deprecating humor. I know how that is. But when I showed him that his poetry could involve things like noises or slang, he immediately took a new liking to it.

Boy number two was mainly held back by his lack of will. All he needed was a few reminders to keep working, and he was fine. Boy number three needed someone to buffer the disruptions from the other two or else he got distracted.

As I have more interactions with people in which I am in some kind of position of authority, I am becoming more and more convinced that I cannot help them unless I actively work against the formality of that position. Leadership as servitude is a very powerful thing.

I’m interested; do you find that it is easier to lead when you are attempting to serve others?