The First Rule of Complaining

It’s been said that everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Guilty as charged on that account, I may be the biggest whiner when it comes to the ridiculously and inhuman desert summers, no more so than after returning from the much more hospitable climate of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve been pissing and moaning about how hot it is in this blasted desert since returning from my annual trek to the high country last weekend, but as yet I have been unable to come up with a solution, short of covering the city with a giant tent and pumping in air conditioning, or locking myself in a restaurant deep freezer until November.

We love to complain, not just Americans but all people. It is part of our nature, sometimes it is just a way to blow off steam, the way we complain to our spouse about our boss, we know that we can’t change our boss or our job, but it feels good to let out a little vitriol nonetheless. Sometimes it is just a way to pass the time, sitting around gossiping and griping. Sometimes it is a serious attempt to solve a problem because you can’t make things better unless you are sufficiently worked up enough to do something about it.

And therein lays the key to successful complainers, as opposed to those who just piss and moan into the wind, the ability to do something about it, or at least the attempt to do so. My old boss had a rule that applied to gripes that came up in meetings, and it was that if you saw a problem, you were in charge of fixing it. I can only estimate how much shorter that kept our weekly meetings, because nothing shuts up the naysayers more quickly than requiring them to come up with a solution. Perhaps this first rule of complaining could be applied to Congress, to the political punditry, and even more broadly to the public at large.

The idea for this column came from recent conversations regarding unsolicited emails sent from friends and acquaintances that make sport of bashing our new president. Many of you have probably received them, they make plausible but unsubstantiated claims that are easy to buy into if one is so inclined, but not so easily proved or backed up with any facts. They generally run along the lines of, Obama is a socialist, he wants to take over the banks and General Motors, he wants to turn us into a bunch of African Muslims, he wants America to be just like France and Sweden. He wants to force us into rationed health care, take away our guns, tax us until we bleed, and force us all into driving hybrid Chevy Malibus.

And those of us, who at last count was well over 60% of the population if you believe the opinion surveys, that actually support the president are just a bunch of suckers that are being taken in by Obama’s charm and good looks and smooth talk. We’re just a bunch of high school sophomore girls being swept off their feet by the popular senior and we’re only going to get taken for a ride and then dumped in the back of the gym parking lot when all is said and done.

So my charge to the Obama haters out there is to propose some solutions to the problems they love to moan about. The next time one of those annoying emails comes across your inbox mocking the president and anyone with the audacity to hope that he will turn out to be the real deal, reply with a simple question, what is your proposed solution? Not happy with the health care proposal, or with immigration law, or with the stimulus package or the size of the deficit? Fine, then what do you propose we as a nation do about it?

We have plenty of things to complain about, a multitude of problems to solve and the only way to do that is through open and honest debate among people who disagree about the best way to address these concerns. Groupthink doesn’t have a great track record of bringing about positive change, so divergent opinions and challenges to conventional thinking should be welcomed. But the first rule of complaining should be adhered to at all times, if you’ve got a gripe, then you need to propose a solution. Unless of course you’re talking about the 115 degree Phoenix weather in July, which is a complaint without a solution, and a problem that even Obama can’t solve.