TALKING "ABOUT", COMPLAINING AND WHERE IS THE LINE?
VICTIM TALK OR PROGRESSIVE TALK, WHERE IS THE LINE?
"Until we stop talking about problems and only engage in solving them, we will experience our problems over and over plus we will groove into place in the mind that which is negative and pulls oneself down."
VICTIM REINFORCEMENT OR PROGRESSING IN LIFE?
Unfortunately, or possibly hopelessly, I am writing this for a person who is using his/her conversation relatively often on the “wrong side of the line” in the progressiveness-victim spectrum.
One end of the line is that of progressiveness, where everything that is done is driven forward to completion of getting a better result and not just talking about a problem, but actually solving it.
There is a place on the spectrum where people are actually getting some benefit because they are solving some symptoms. That might help for the short term, but since the causes are not cured, the symptoms repeat themselves. The observable fact that the symptoms (and problems) come back repeatedly is a concrete, indisputable sign of having at least misapplied one's energy by applying it to something that has a much lower payoff than the extra effort put forth to solve something completely and finally.
Unfortunately, the person who does this continues to suffer, but perhaps a little less than the person who just talks about how bad things are and presents himself as the victim of what happens to him.
JUSTIFICATIONS AND BELIEFS
Now, of course, we each have our justifications and/or beliefs about why we do this. But this article is not to sit in judgment of this, but to look at what produces desirable results and what produces undesirable results. A person must get this down clearly, or he/she will continue to do what doesn't work, but being convinced of it being right(!).
Well, it isn't “right” if it doesn't work. Something not working is a concrete proof that what is being done is not “right”, in the sense of not being workable. (Workable means it works to get the desired end results of a sequence of steps taken.) See Good/Bad, Right/Wrong Vs. Workable - What Is "True"?
Most of the time people who don't get their desired results and/or keep having the same problem are simply “stopping short” of doing what it takes to “complete” the solution to the problem, though they may “want to” solve the problem. Of course, “wanting to” is akin to “wishing for” if there is not sufficient action taken to get the end result. (See Completion - The Process Creating Great Power.)
Simple. Definite. Proven. (...that we are not doing enough, because the result is always the proof of the workability of what we have done or not done.)
GOOD TO "TALK THINGS OUT"?
What is in common between people that keep on being a victim in all of this is that they may think what they are doing is good. It is “good to talk things out”, because then I can think them out.” That's a possibly true statement. But if one somehow grasps things more clearly by talking them out, does the person stop there? Does the person get the result? If not, then the exercise had very little or no value – a “faux” value, because we think it has value, but that thinking is false. If the person doesn't implement what the lesson is then it is simply another complete – which all victims have plenty of, lying around the front yard of their mind like a bunch of old rusting cars in some areas. See also "Talking It Out": Positive, Maybe, But Enough? - read what it links to also.
BUT I ALREADY KNOW THIS
The interesting thing is that many of these people can talk a good game and display quite a bit of knowledge in the area, but, other than showing off, the knowledge is not sufficient to get the results – something must be missing or they would have the result!!!! (Duh!) (See "Sufficent" Knowing.)
It is largely pointless, in terms of making progress to talk to these people, as they will constantly be bringing up how much they know and saying what should be done and how they know what to do – but the proof that they don't is blatantly obvious in the results. They are “full of themselves” or at least trying to “look good” and “smart”, to prove their innate worth and smarts – they are of the “fixed mindset” (no matter how much self improvement they have learned), where one defends one's fixed level of smartness, always living in a defensive mode – see The Fixed Mindset Versus The Growth Mindset – The Defensive What's Wrong With Me Versus The What Do I Need To Learn Now Approach. Many of these people have good intent (to improve), but are stuck in the “look smart” mode and are largely engaged in not listening.
The classic story is the one about the fellow who searched all over the world for the wisest man in the world, who he found clothed only in loin cloths on the top of the mountain. For everything that was said by the wise man, the fellow put forth his own wisdom on the subject. Finally,the wise man offered him some tea, and when pouring the tea into the cup he just kept on pouring until it ran over onto the tray - “sir, it's running over...!” “Yes”, said the wiseman, “ an already full cup has no room for more tea nor more wisdom...”
In a way, the person who is in the range below progressiveness often lacks sufficient humility to listen, or sometimes it is so threatening to “not know everything” that the person cannot listen, as he/she must actively defend...
SO, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
So, what are you to do about this if you are in the "not progressing well" part of the spectrum?
First, of all, understand the above, stopping short, being a victim, and the need to listen.
Next, set some rules.
One rule that is strongly resisted in the victim range is to “never mention the negative or the past unless there is a commitment to carry through to learning the lesson and implementing it” - because otherwise it is simply a depressing conversation, locking into the brain how incompetent and/or bad you are. And that conversation also displaces the “perspective conversation”, which is where you are high up enough to see all of what is going on and to appreciate what is existing in the world that is good and beneficial in one's life.
We've all been around people who complain and/or play the “woe is me” game or the “this is why I am the way I am” game or “it's the fault of others/circumstances” and, in contrast, we've been around a few people who play the “I am the creator of my life and my circumstances” game. The first is relatively depressing and very repetitive – with a negative effect on all those who it is “shared” with and a “locking in” in the brain of those who innocently play the repeat-until-it-is-engrained-in-the-brain inevitably damaging game, where esteem plummets and/or denial reigns supreme.
ERR ON THE RIGHT SIDE
But one of the rules of life is to err on the side of not talking about any of the past nor standing in the back of the boat while trying to navigate their life's ship.
The exception to the rule is talk about it only for positive purposes, which would include good memories or a brief time of analysis, using the past as data to mine to learn lessons from (such as to not repeat the past actions that got you the bad results!).
I will also repeat this theme again: those people who fail to notice and respond to correct the action that caused what didn't work are simply doomed to repeat the past – you can spot those people since they are experiencing the same problems throughout their lives. (Contrast those people with the modus operandi of those who Live Life As A Life Champion.)
TAKING A STAND, ACTING
If you are standing, at least for purposes of what we are trying to do here, for “being the creator”, and not the victim, of life, then you will take what happened, analyze it, talk about it only to mine the data AND then, the final sign of being a creator, do what is necessary to learn and do what is needed to get the right result the next time.
Of course, we will all have some failures, because we will still be in the “not yet knowing enough” mode, but eventually we all can get to the other side – and live in a relatively problem free life, creating lots of good circumstances and much, much happiness. The people who do this are simply using “the process” that all those who Live Life As A Life Champion do – take the “feedback” from life and then, as rapidly as possible, implement something else that works, just as a super-champion does in sports.
If you'll strictly adopt this final rule of “no complaining, ever” (don't indulge the addiction even a little!), you are left with the only alternative: to actually do something that causes progress toward a greater and greater and greater life, free of Groundhog Day, living the life of Pokeyman, and being a Gradually Boiling Frog in life.
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THIS IS NOT DERISIVE, BUT IT IS DESCRIPTIVE
I am not talking about a victim as a derisive term, but just as a description of a way of being that a person takes on in life for whatever reason. The key point is that the viewpoint of being a victim is one that is harmful – and one that can be changed for one's betterment. (The victim role also includes a lot of behavior that is little boy or little girl behavior that is often infuriating to others when they are trying to support the person in progressing but receiving from him/her all of this “I'm helpless” dialogue. Be clear on this: see Victimhood - A Role We Don't See Ourselves Taking On, But A Prime Cause Of Unhappiness!
Besides this, I notice that those who remain in the role of being a victim also have in common:
Much of their talk is about the past, about authority figures who they have to get the approval of (as if a child), and how they are helpless to change the circumstances (the ultimate lie).
Blame the circumstances and/or other people.
Believing that guilt and shame are real, rather than fabricated schemes for control, which also include elaborate modes of “make wrong” (click on the link to learn more and then follow the path until it is completed, which means that you continue until guilt and shame are gone forever, into the pile of junk called “old false beliefs”. The old false beliefs come mostly of childhood, but are often reinforced by cultural misbeliefs used to control social behavior with others. (Notice that people who have high guilt tend to also hold perfection as a goal or even a "need". See Perfection - The Sure-Fire Path To Hell.)
