I’m told that when I was very young, I whined. A lot. Apparently, I whined so much that while visiting a relative who was a nurse, she told my mother, “You need to take that child to a doctor. No one whines that much unless something is wrong.” The doctor did, indeed, find something physically wrong with me. I guess I stopped whining quite so much after that. I must not have stopped entirely, though, because I remember my dad using the phrase, “Quit your bellyaching” fairly often. I recently noticed that I still do my share of whining, especially at work. Oh, maybe I don’t do it in the high-pitched, annoying voice that I used as a child, but I still whine. A friend and co-worker laughingly confirmed this.
Sometimes complaints need to be made. Since it is January, my students have been studying the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Certainly, whining about his causes was the right thing to do. Enough people whined and complained long enough to be heard, and positive changes occurred. The question is, where is the line between legitimate complaints and just whining about life in general? I mean, am I whining about whining right now in this blog?
I sometimes throw myself a “pity party” when I should be grateful. When we complain to the wrong people for the wrong reasons, we become negative about life, and there are so many more positive things than negative ones in most of our lives. I know there are in mine. So, I am going to try to stop complaining about unimportant things or things that cannot be changed. I bet whoever wrote “The Serenity Prayer” learned how to quit his bellyaching, and so can I. For those of you who do not know this prayer, here it is:
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
(Author thought to be Reinhold Niebuhr)
January 2020