Blame

Especially right now, in the aftermath of the EU Referendum, there is a lot of blaming going on. Stop it, is my recommendation.

It is not the old, for voting to leave; it is not the young, for not turning out in enough numbers to vote for remaining; it is not the immigrants, for taking ‘our’ jobs or overloading our welfare system. No, it was a democratic decision by the nation and we all have to live with it and make the best of it.

If you voted out, you are doubtless looking forward to a rosy future. If you voted remain, you will be nervous about the consequences. All that blame will achieve is to suck the energy out of the whole nation and make whatever comes next more difficult to achieve/tolerate.

And so it is in all other aspects of life. Blame always looks destructively to the past and never creatively to the future. So live in the now and prepare for what is coming, good or bad. It is fine to plan for eventualities; remember, though, we never really know how we will react or what we will really do, until the eventuality appears.

Be responsible for your own actions, forgiving of others who act differently. Keep your own counsel and do what you think (know) is right for your and, so far as possible, for others.

Complaining

Here’s a suggestion I found on the Internet. ‘Go an entire day without criticising anyone.’

It sounded like an interesting idea so I tried it. Difficult is an inadequate description. Half my internal dialogue seems to be criticism, directed inward or outward, and and awful lot of my spoken dialogue is too. Sometimes I disguise it as ‘advice’ or ‘suggestion’ but, at bottom, it remains criticism.

What has this to do with complaining? Well, criticism is complaining.

And another interesting suggestion I came across recently is: ‘Never complain about anything, even to yourself.’

So why not try it? I am getting marginally better at suppressing my complaints/criticisms and I do find it liberating. Maybe you will too.