The difference between a complaining mode and an explaining mode
When I am bringing a product defect to someone's attention, or just answering a 'questionable' question, I tack on a caveat: "I am NOT complaining...I AM explaining!" How about YOU? Do you find yourself complaining more, as you grow older?
Dunno Joe.
Sometimes a complaint has to come with an explanation to justify the complaint unless of course you’re a man explaining your complaint to a woman who will accuse you of “mansplaining” thereby rendering any and all possibilities that his complaint was warranted to begin with.
Although, if a person merely said that “it’s so cold that I saw a politician with his hands in his own pockets”, one would naturally expect the complaint of being cold to be followed with a modifier and and a query of, “which politician”?
Same thing with praise. If you’re a person who does everything great, you’d want to know which great thing you did that the admirer is referring to.
On the other hand, if a person does nothing right, he doesn’t need an explanation of what the praise was for.
Now, do I personally complain? Yup but almost always produce a qualifier that explains why I’m upset. I’m a guy and that’s what guys do as opposed to most women who, when a husband asks his wife what’s wrong she will just hack up that “look” and say, “nothing(!!!)” which leaves said husband (whose first name has been changed to “Nothing”) to explain to himself why she’s ticked.
One other kind of complaining I do is to the only one who can fix it. He doesn’t need an explanation but I do it anyway in hopes that He sees it more from my prospective. Moses did it, Sarai did it as did a few other Biblical characters. They explained their point of view and He either went with it or didn’t.
I tried it yesterday. It was 14 degrees outside and whilst complaining about it I explained to God that I could do my work much better if it were about 70 degrees.
Since it only made it to 42 degrees, He obviously understood my complaint but my explanation just wasn’t good enough to warrant a temporary heat wave in the middle of December.