And Tochi Says… Whose thoughts are YOU thinking?

What would happen if we had some kind of ‘three-strike’ rule for complaining, intentional victims? After three times of listening to a person complaining about the same thing and doing nothing about it, we stop listening to them?

This happened to me recently. Even though at the time I first believed that my cousin was being unsympathetic, her refusal to listen to me complain about the same thing a fourth time forced me to stop complaining, take action and terminate the issue. Now that I’m not bothered, she’s not bothered either! Upon reflection, I saw that the knowledge that I had an audience to listen to enabled me not to take action. I was perfectly capable and able to do what was needed; the act of telling my story over and over again supported my procrastination to take appropriate action.

We all can learn from this experience. Knowingly or unknowingly, we can be enablers of self-crucifying victims who find it easier to complain and do absolutely nothing about their situation. Now, I’m not talking about true victims, like children, who may be in truly awful circumstances that they cannot get out of on their own, or adults who are under binding contracts that they must fulfill or else pay an insufferable penalty. I’m talking about people who are being bullied and abused, yet have options they choose not to activate because activating those options will dry up the wells of sympathy and pity that they draw upon which makes them feel good about martyrdom.

This is the thought: If you are a chronic complainer currently in an abusive or intolerable situation of any kind, and you are an adult, and you have full use of your faculties and your body, you can do something about it, no matter how desperate or difficult. Your long-suffering audience may have been avoiding you just because they know this too.

The image used in this post is courtesy of the contributors to Creative Commons. I am immensely grateful.