Venting

I advised someone recently to limit the venting and pessimistic talk that comes with frustration. My point was that focusing on positives, speaking in optimistic terms, and stating frustrations without embellishment or blame was a positively reinforcing, good thing. I have since then gone about some venting of my own. Oh well, call me (yet again) a well intentioned hypocrite. I do believe in the power of positive thinking and work on acting upon it daily.

Do, or do not. There is no try. --Yoda

An article about frustrated teachers' blog postings points to the serious problems associated with venting, especially about one's work and especially in public venues. I'm all for the need to vent from time to time, but I think it's a form of self indulgence. I want to be negative, so I let myself be negative. I want ice cream, so I let myself have ice cream. I think it's possible to vent and have ice cream within healthy bounds, as in the case of a person who is generally self aware, reflective, disciplined. Trouble is, most of us go about our day in an oblivious state. Discipline is often an external force, not internally, consciously acted upon. We pay attention to that which presents itself most forcefully to our consciousness. What is the answer? Like the 12 step approach advises: first acknowledge we have a problem.

If we all said we had a problem, does that in itself become a problem? Isn't acknowledging the problem the first step in coming to a sustainable solution? Maybe we don't actually believe in the possibility of a solution. There goes that negative thinking again. Like I said before, the power of positive thinking is its own reward. Try it.

I have few if any qualms about being a broken record. Am I in denial? I found a few quotes on the subject of repetition. Which of these most resembles my thoughts and actions? Which resembles yours?

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. --Franklin D. Roosevelt

The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things. --Ernest Dimnet

We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation. --Florence Scovel Shinn

I had not yet read today's Daily Darma when I wrote the above, but it seems eerily coincidental:

What one thinks or reads is always qualified by the preposition "of," or "about," and does not give us the thing itself. Not mere talk about water, nor the mere sight of a spring, but an actual mouthful of it gives the thirsty complete satisfaction. --D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism