A few weeks ago someone reached out to me to ask why most of my blogs were so positive. To quote her note, “we all know it’s not possible to have a perfect life, so it would be helpful if you could give us a glimpse of how you handle the imperfection too. What makes you mad?"

It’s not that I’m a perpetual optimist – trust me, I’ve never been called Miss Sunshine, but I tend to not like dwelling on the negative. I don’t like to dwell on it, but sometimes…sometimes it just smacks you between the eyes and you’re forced to acknowledge it. So brace yourself. This entry is going to be a litany of things that get under my skin. I’m not promising inspiration, but if you want reality, I’ll dish it in spades.

Recently I had the privilege of traveling to North Carolina to attend the National Smart Start Conference. On the plane ride down I had the unique joy of sitting in the middle seat sandwiched between two friends taking a vacation together. They were swapping phones so each one could listen to music the other had downloaded. For the most part I ignored them, trying to read some articles I’d printed out to prepare for the conference. But, I couldn’t ignore this comment, “I know he wrote the song, but he should have made it happier because the way it ends is such a downer.”

At first I thought, “Ah, how nice to be twenty and believe you know how to make everything better.” As I thought about it more though I realized it was more than that. The song in question was about a man’s personal experience in life. He couldn’t make it happier, because that instance in his life didn’t end with a smile and rainbow. Somehow, this girl believed herself to be an authority either on songwriting or personal experience. If she’d like to hear a happy song about divorce, then I suggest she write one herself. It irks me to no end when we assume to be authorities on subjects even without first-hand knowledge of them.

This brings me to my next beef…people who like to complain without a willingness to help fix the problem. In my role at work, I often have people come to me to make me aware of issues. My usual response is, “What can I do to be helpful?” If they have no suggestions and seem to be stuck in a complaint loop I like to turn it around and ask, “Great, then what can you do to be helpful?” More often than not, they leave very quickly after that second question. When people only want to be critical, they rarely want to play a role in fixing the problem. After all, if they fix it, then what will they have to complain about?

Oh…here’s another one. I don’t like it when I order a hot fudge sundae and there’s so much ice cream on it, they can’t add much fudge. For this treat to be satisfying it needs to have lots of gloopy chocolate so that it lasts through most of the cold creamy base. That’s not a world peace kind of problem, I admit, but I did warn you that for those who wanted to see behind the curtain in my head, this would be a completely honest look.

A total disregard for manners also brings out my claws. When I say, “Thank you,” I like to hear someone reply, “You’re welcome.” Likewise, when I hold the elevator for you to slowly meander to it, I’d like you to express some kind of gratitude. Not that I like to be praised, but because manners matter. When we lose these basic relation skills, then we lose part of our civilization. How hard is it to be grateful to someone who voluntarily lets you get in line in front of them in the grocery store because you’re only purchasing three things, and they have two weeks of food for five people? I didn’t have to save you all that time, so a smile or even a head nod would have been nice…I digress.

How about this? When you spend some time complaining about the things that bother you only to realize you’ve managed to talk in a complete circle. That’s right, each of things are examples where I’ve declared myself an authority on something: gentility, personnel management, songwriting, or dessert (I’m actually willing to call myself an expert on the last one, simply because of the vast experience I have in consuming said food group).

I think the reason I don’t like to write about the negative as a focus is because the thing I detest most of all is hypocritical behavior. I’ve critiqued a song without much experience in trying to truly craft emotion into music. I’ve elected to keep my conversation on my cell phone moving forward instead of taking it from my ear to say thank you to the person holding the door for me. And, I’ve no doubt put too much fudge on someone’s ice cream causing them to complain about the distorted ratio.

We all like to complain, and when it’s done as a private cathartic release, or to bring about helpful change, then I’m a big fan of it. When it becomes a way of life, I’m not so keen. I tried…honestly, I did. I wanted to give you a posting of my biggest gripes, but in the end, I feel like my neighbor on the plane – I just want this to end happily.

Happy Reading!