Thanks Steve. You're one of the most brilliant people I sort of know from a distance, and one of my favorite people in the world.
Erin too.
What if a successful person has a negative attitude toward unsuccessful people? How would that affect a successful person?
There was a debate I participated in a couple years ago where I was astonished at how nasty and cruel some people's opinions of poor people were:
Stop Fleecing Poor Americans - BusinessWeek
(All posts to that debate are edited by the BusinessWeek website, so I put my unedited versions of my replies on my own website:
Astroblahhh.Com - My comments posted in May-June 2007 to BusinessWeek.com on the topic "Stop Fleecing Poor Americans" ).
What is the impact on someone's life of hating poor, unsuccessful people?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by The blog post When you put the two different types of people together, you have the unsuccessful people talking about their grievances, which annoys and disturbs the highly successful people if overdone. Initially a successful person may try to help out by offering advice or mentoring. But when s/he observes that the unsuccessful person applies none of it and comes up with excuses to maintain the status quo, it’s an immediate turnoff. The successful person will usually bow out and go where his/her talents and skills are appreciated. |
Am I doomed to failure because I'm often not annoyed by people's complaining?
I often think complainers have at least some valid points, and I often tend to sympathize with them, even if/when they "overdo" it.
The only thing that really bothers me is if the complainer seems to just be running around in circles beating a dead horse - not honestly trying to think through the issues and really find solutions, but just wasting time and energy, and trying to rationalize their avoidance of attempting to create any significant changes.
I know one person who does that a lot. It's not the complaining itself which is annoying, it's just that person's paralyzed refusal to accept most any possible solutions that bothers me. They're just constantly being defeatist for no good reason and making excuses for why almost everything suggested won't work.
Oh, well, at least that kind of complainer isn't so defeatist that they totally give up even struggling with the issues that are plaguing them. At least a chronic complainer has tenacity. Plus, since it's such a challenge to get through to such people, I find it especially satisfying whenever I manage to do it.
I think some forms of complaining can actually be very powerful.
The
Declaration of Independence could be regarded as a long list of whining grievances. Whine, whine, whine - "look at all the ways King George is victimizing us! Wahh!"
But just look what it helped achieve. Perhaps proving that whining can sometimes be a noble, inspiring act of patriots.
Best wishes,
Apollia