No Whining Wednesday – Live Not for the Praise of Men

Welcome back to another episode of No Whining Wednesday! Today, you cannot whine, criticize, or complain.

If you are new to this blog or new to this segment please visit the NWW page here for past episodes.

Today’s inspiring word is about praise and criticism. There are many variations of this quote, and challenging to track down the first person who said it. The one I found most fitting for this feature is this one:

Another variation is this one:

“If you live off a man’s compliments, you’ll die from his criticism.”—Cornelius Lindsey.”

There are many reasons we whine and complain. One of them is because we are not getting enough attention. Some of us have no real issues in our lives except we want to be seen, acknowledged, and praised. This is not entirely a bad thing, but it could be if we are dependent on it.

Sometimes when we are frustrated, we want to vent to others. This can be a good thing and feel like a warm hug from that one trustworthy friend, much like a child who falls and hurts themselves and gets a kiss on the boo-boo from mom. But, too many kisses from mom will have the child purposely hurting themselves to get that validation.

I am no psychologist, and I am certainly not your therapist, but in my thirty-four years on this earth, I’ve learned we do this as adults too. We might not run to our mothers for hugs and kisses, but we run to other people for validation when we do not recognize our own potential or when we want to be coddled. The danger in this is we end up living off the praises of men and dying from their criticisms.

And how do we die?

We cannot function without praise, and we do not understand how to discern negative feedback.

We have invested so much of ourselves into what other people think and how other people feel, and what other people think we should do with our lives that we become like little children who cannot be told no. If you don’t have the support of the group, you are out here throwing temper tantrums. You’ve become an ‘energy vampire’ who desperately needs to feed.

No matter how good of a person you are, you are still the villain in someone’s story because you simply cannot please everyone. Once you stop caring what people think of your decisions and whether or not they like you, you step into your most authentic self.

Problems need solutions, and complaining to others can be good when we need to be heard or are looking for answers. After all, it is wise to listen to advice, especially when coming from people who have been where we want to go or experienced the troubles we are currently experiencing.

Giving and receiving genuine praise and compliments is a good thing, and we all need it, but balance is necessary. Without balance, we depend on the feedback from others more than on our own souls. We open ourselves up to everyone else’s input and everyone else’s solutions despite our own intuition, and we seek to be validated because we do not recognize our own value.

Not only do we want to cut down on complaining, but we also want to cut down on letting other people’s complaints negatively influence us.

You matter, and your presence is necessary to the world—the end.