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When lack of accomplishment is no one’s fault but your own, whining about it isn't going to help
There’s an old maxim that anybody who continually complains about how expensive doing something is but continues to do it is simply talking for effect. This is eminently true and the same principle applies when it comes to somebody continually whining about how hard something is to do though they apparently still keep doing it. Bragging about cost is a crass way of attempting to over inflate your own self-importance via the medium of money: whining about difficulty thus is similarly a crass way of attempting to garner praise and/or the leeway to fall beneath the acceptable standard.
By way of example, everybody finds doing a Masters difficult. The gap between doing an undergrad degree and a Masters is comparable to the drastic difference between doing your GCSEs and your A-Levels. Nothing prepares you for the rapid shift in gears, the change in teaching style, the change in learning pace. You just have to give it your best shot and hit the ground running. As you progress you learn through experience how to get things done. It’s trial by fire and if you survive and emerge victorious on the other side it’s a well earned victory. Funnily enough the same thing applies to life. There are things that you’re never taught, things that even if you’re taught beforehand still bear little resemblance to theory in the real world, things that will require some genuine hard graft no matter how well-rounded you may think yourself. The point is to either die or adapt. Either you get on with it and surmount the obstacle or you walk away. Either decision requires self-awareness and determination, either requires that you have the sense and courage to go through with your decision. And despite the oft implication of walking away from something sometimes that’s the best decision you can make and having realised it that alone warrants a certain measure of respect.
What doesn’t warrant respect, praise or even sympathy after a while is constantly whining about the difficult of doing something. Complaining to your friends is to be expected. I more or less lost the ability to have normal conversations while I was writing up my Masters dissertation, a fact to which my friends can attest. I ended up literally slumped over my desk pulling at my own hair on occasion, my ashtray was overflowing, my floor was littered with marked up articles that contained what might eventually be applicable references. I scrawled drafts of paragraphs all over the place, threw documents aside while I was searching for others, cursed at my piles of textbooks while they toppled over as I wrestled a volume free. I existed in a state of highly-strung, chaotic fury at my own inability to simply get the job done. And I don’t doubt that others have experienced similar. My dissertation write-up wasn’t more difficult than anybody else’s: I simply wasn’t that special. I was doing what countless numbers of others had done before me, what others were doing at the same time as me and what others have been doing long after I finished. It was stressful, infuriating, frustrating and an absolutely glorious haze of single-minded determination from which I emerged to assert that it was in a word: fun. But it wasn’t by any leap of the imagination easy.
There seems to be a rather appalling attitude in certain circles that nothing can be difficult i.e. worth achieving unless they’re doing it. So anything anyone else achieves is worthless because it’s written off as being easy. I once had an alarming conversation with a philosophy student who seemed absolutely stunned that science degrees were work-intensive and not exactly a walk in the park. I was so surprised that I didn’t make the observation that the one philosophy module I’d taken as an elective was something I could have slept through and still have made the grade for in response. This isn’t to say that the study of philosophy is redundant or simple in anyway since I only really have that one module as evidence and to be perfectly fair it was run by a lecturer who seemed to be trying so very hard to come up with a new and radical interpretation of an ancient text that the teaching part was ludicrous. The fact of the matter there being that at the end of the day if you want to learn something, anything, you have to make an effort.
The world is filled with difficult things and if you want to achieve anything you have to knuckle down and get on with it. The only real distinction is that if you’re enjoying yourself you’re liable to put in more effort than if you’re not. I’m currently in the process of learning the Russian alphabet out of personal interest and it’s difficult because I’m unfamiliar with the script and the sounds associated with each letter. Some of it may sound like English phonetics but there are distinct sounds in Russian that aren’t separated out in a similar fashion in English. Thus, learning the alphabet and retaining that information is difficult: I’m progressing at a pace of three letters per day at most. My pronunciation of words in Pali is probably better than my grasp of Russian phonetics at the moment and what Pali I know is entirely in the form of Buddhist sutras repeated by monks at various events. All of it is difficult, that’s why I’m only making slow progress with either: it’s not the acknowledgment of that fact that’s the problem. People acknowledge the difficulty of things every day, they share a grumble with friends and then they get on with it. If I have a project deadline of 4pm which is a non-negotiable deadline with a client I can complain about it but I still have to get on with it, I still have to make that deadline. And my complaining really is only a commiseration issue, it’s only venting the stress of that looming deadline: it’s not in any way, shape or form attempting to suggest that that deadline has no meaning or that because meeting that deadline is hard that I ought to be excused from it.
There’s a whole world of difference between venting, commiserating or just talking yourself into motivation and whining. Whining presumes that people should make excuses for you because you find something difficult, that the bar should be lowered because you’re such a fragile little flower that you couldn’t possibly be expected to match the set standard. Whining is expecting everybody around you to congratulate you on failing your Grade V Theory exam because it was so difficult while at the same time you’re showing the utmost disrespect to the hoards of musicians who have put in the work and passed said exam. I almost didn’t pass, I found the exam itself and the preparation beforehand difficult but at no point did I expect my difficulty with it to excuse me from having to pass the exam before I could take further practical grades. To have done so would have shown a complete and utter disrespect for my fellow musicians who had already passed the exam or aspired to, for the ABRSM themselves and for classical music training as a whole. If I’d whined that I should just be allowed to continue on without meeting the set requirements I certainly hope that my piano teacher would have tossed me out on my ear and blacklisted me from ever studying with any pianist of reputation within the county. As it was I passed, just barely and with that pass I joined the ranks of music students who had knuckled down and got on with it. I had achieved the required standard and could celebrate the fact that no matter how close a scrape, no matter how arduous the study, I had done what countless other music students had done before me and made the grade. I’d earned my place through hard graft.
Being able to earn your place, to pull your weight and achieve by surmounting difficulties is a basic human trait. As species we don’t tend to just give up and go away when an end is difficult to achieve and it’s because of that tenacity that humanity is now in the position of dominant predator. There are any number of clichéd motivational phrases about working harder and more effectively to surmount a difficult obstacle and they’re all quite plainly applicable. Struggle provides for forward momentum, surmounting difficult odds allows for critical learning. What doesn’t allow for anything but failure is whining that the bar should be lowered, that the powers that be should congratulate you for failing at a task that has been accomplished by millions of other people around you. Besides, to that sort of argument I always find myself asking ‘what makes you so special?’ Why is it that the standard should be dragged into the dirt for one person who refuses to apply themselves? Why is it that that person feels that their failure should be lauded above all the great successes of humanity?
At the end of the day it’s Special Snowflake Syndrome of course. People who honestly feel that their personal difficulty with something should negate all the effort applied and success achieved by everybody else in the field whether professional or amateur really are demonstrating that they personally aren’t prepared to make the effort. Unfortunately, instead of choosing to walk away and apply themselves to something else they still want to reap some reward for having vaguely associated themselves with the field hence the continual whining about the difficulty of applying themselves. It’s often said that insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results and in this case it’s certainly applicable because if the general response to such amplified whining is anything like mine then there are going to be an awful lot of people whose sympathy shrivels up and quite rapidly transforms into wanting to give the whiner a good hard kick in the teeth.
By way of example, everybody finds doing a Masters difficult. The gap between doing an undergrad degree and a Masters is comparable to the drastic difference between doing your GCSEs and your A-Levels. Nothing prepares you for the rapid shift in gears, the change in teaching style, the change in learning pace. You just have to give it your best shot and hit the ground running. As you progress you learn through experience how to get things done. It’s trial by fire and if you survive and emerge victorious on the other side it’s a well earned victory. Funnily enough the same thing applies to life. There are things that you’re never taught, things that even if you’re taught beforehand still bear little resemblance to theory in the real world, things that will require some genuine hard graft no matter how well-rounded you may think yourself. The point is to either die or adapt. Either you get on with it and surmount the obstacle or you walk away. Either decision requires self-awareness and determination, either requires that you have the sense and courage to go through with your decision. And despite the oft implication of walking away from something sometimes that’s the best decision you can make and having realised it that alone warrants a certain measure of respect.
What doesn’t warrant respect, praise or even sympathy after a while is constantly whining about the difficult of doing something. Complaining to your friends is to be expected. I more or less lost the ability to have normal conversations while I was writing up my Masters dissertation, a fact to which my friends can attest. I ended up literally slumped over my desk pulling at my own hair on occasion, my ashtray was overflowing, my floor was littered with marked up articles that contained what might eventually be applicable references. I scrawled drafts of paragraphs all over the place, threw documents aside while I was searching for others, cursed at my piles of textbooks while they toppled over as I wrestled a volume free. I existed in a state of highly-strung, chaotic fury at my own inability to simply get the job done. And I don’t doubt that others have experienced similar. My dissertation write-up wasn’t more difficult than anybody else’s: I simply wasn’t that special. I was doing what countless numbers of others had done before me, what others were doing at the same time as me and what others have been doing long after I finished. It was stressful, infuriating, frustrating and an absolutely glorious haze of single-minded determination from which I emerged to assert that it was in a word: fun. But it wasn’t by any leap of the imagination easy.
There seems to be a rather appalling attitude in certain circles that nothing can be difficult i.e. worth achieving unless they’re doing it. So anything anyone else achieves is worthless because it’s written off as being easy. I once had an alarming conversation with a philosophy student who seemed absolutely stunned that science degrees were work-intensive and not exactly a walk in the park. I was so surprised that I didn’t make the observation that the one philosophy module I’d taken as an elective was something I could have slept through and still have made the grade for in response. This isn’t to say that the study of philosophy is redundant or simple in anyway since I only really have that one module as evidence and to be perfectly fair it was run by a lecturer who seemed to be trying so very hard to come up with a new and radical interpretation of an ancient text that the teaching part was ludicrous. The fact of the matter there being that at the end of the day if you want to learn something, anything, you have to make an effort.
The world is filled with difficult things and if you want to achieve anything you have to knuckle down and get on with it. The only real distinction is that if you’re enjoying yourself you’re liable to put in more effort than if you’re not. I’m currently in the process of learning the Russian alphabet out of personal interest and it’s difficult because I’m unfamiliar with the script and the sounds associated with each letter. Some of it may sound like English phonetics but there are distinct sounds in Russian that aren’t separated out in a similar fashion in English. Thus, learning the alphabet and retaining that information is difficult: I’m progressing at a pace of three letters per day at most. My pronunciation of words in Pali is probably better than my grasp of Russian phonetics at the moment and what Pali I know is entirely in the form of Buddhist sutras repeated by monks at various events. All of it is difficult, that’s why I’m only making slow progress with either: it’s not the acknowledgment of that fact that’s the problem. People acknowledge the difficulty of things every day, they share a grumble with friends and then they get on with it. If I have a project deadline of 4pm which is a non-negotiable deadline with a client I can complain about it but I still have to get on with it, I still have to make that deadline. And my complaining really is only a commiseration issue, it’s only venting the stress of that looming deadline: it’s not in any way, shape or form attempting to suggest that that deadline has no meaning or that because meeting that deadline is hard that I ought to be excused from it.
There’s a whole world of difference between venting, commiserating or just talking yourself into motivation and whining. Whining presumes that people should make excuses for you because you find something difficult, that the bar should be lowered because you’re such a fragile little flower that you couldn’t possibly be expected to match the set standard. Whining is expecting everybody around you to congratulate you on failing your Grade V Theory exam because it was so difficult while at the same time you’re showing the utmost disrespect to the hoards of musicians who have put in the work and passed said exam. I almost didn’t pass, I found the exam itself and the preparation beforehand difficult but at no point did I expect my difficulty with it to excuse me from having to pass the exam before I could take further practical grades. To have done so would have shown a complete and utter disrespect for my fellow musicians who had already passed the exam or aspired to, for the ABRSM themselves and for classical music training as a whole. If I’d whined that I should just be allowed to continue on without meeting the set requirements I certainly hope that my piano teacher would have tossed me out on my ear and blacklisted me from ever studying with any pianist of reputation within the county. As it was I passed, just barely and with that pass I joined the ranks of music students who had knuckled down and got on with it. I had achieved the required standard and could celebrate the fact that no matter how close a scrape, no matter how arduous the study, I had done what countless other music students had done before me and made the grade. I’d earned my place through hard graft.
Being able to earn your place, to pull your weight and achieve by surmounting difficulties is a basic human trait. As species we don’t tend to just give up and go away when an end is difficult to achieve and it’s because of that tenacity that humanity is now in the position of dominant predator. There are any number of clichéd motivational phrases about working harder and more effectively to surmount a difficult obstacle and they’re all quite plainly applicable. Struggle provides for forward momentum, surmounting difficult odds allows for critical learning. What doesn’t allow for anything but failure is whining that the bar should be lowered, that the powers that be should congratulate you for failing at a task that has been accomplished by millions of other people around you. Besides, to that sort of argument I always find myself asking ‘what makes you so special?’ Why is it that the standard should be dragged into the dirt for one person who refuses to apply themselves? Why is it that that person feels that their failure should be lauded above all the great successes of humanity?
At the end of the day it’s Special Snowflake Syndrome of course. People who honestly feel that their personal difficulty with something should negate all the effort applied and success achieved by everybody else in the field whether professional or amateur really are demonstrating that they personally aren’t prepared to make the effort. Unfortunately, instead of choosing to walk away and apply themselves to something else they still want to reap some reward for having vaguely associated themselves with the field hence the continual whining about the difficulty of applying themselves. It’s often said that insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results and in this case it’s certainly applicable because if the general response to such amplified whining is anything like mine then there are going to be an awful lot of people whose sympathy shrivels up and quite rapidly transforms into wanting to give the whiner a good hard kick in the teeth.