If you’ve ever interacted with me, you will know that I like
to complain. I like to complain a lot, and complain a lot I do. But at the end
of the day it is things that I love – my job, my family, my students/staff –
that I complain about, almost to the point that you’d be fooled into thinking
that I abhor all of them. Why is that?
It is my belief that it is nature for most of us humans to
be blind to the good, rip out the silver lining and tear it up with our teeth,
and then pretend that nothing can ever be bright or beautiful or worth
appreciating. Certainly the most positive of us have trouble staying positive
all the time and will occasionally let a gloom settle into our bones. We all
feel helpless at times, and when I feel helpless, I complain. It is my coping
mechanism.
I am not ignorant to the fact that there are better coping
mechanisms, ones that are probably more productive that listing all the things
that have gone wrong today, yesterday, last month, etc. But maybe others are;
are you aware of the things you could be doing to improve where you’re at, the
outlook you have, or the direction you’re headed?
Today and tomorrow, the staff at the University Academic
Success Programs department is helping put on a series of workshops for first-time
freshmen who are on academic probation. The program is titled PASS, Pathways to
Achieving Student Success. I anticipate that we will all run into a lot of
complaining and excuse-making in the next thirty-six hours or so. It is our
goal to help re-motivate and re-energize these students who may have lost their
direction, who like me find it is sometimes easier to bad-mouth the
circumstances than to be proactive about changing them. It is my hope that they
find a different perspective today, and that they learn that there are people,
staff and faculty, and plenty of resources available to them to help them on
their way.
I challenge you, and myself, to stop next time you want to
say something negative, and find something else to feel positive about. Let us
set an example for others around us who cannot see the good things they have. And when they can't, help them find something to be positive about.
Now that I’m done preaching, a writerly bit of humor to end
the week:
Happy Friday, and Happy New Year!
-- Your overly mushy Polytechnic Writing Center Supervisor
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