An unhappy camper

Every Thursday I meet with the same client company at their premises. I have been going there for eight years or so and even though my individual students change from time to time, there has been one person who has been there most mornings since the start, the security guard.

The premises are gated with several companies within and security is the first point of contact for visitors and delivery drivers. Every Thursday, I spend a couple minutes talking there with her if there is no one else waiting to get access and every Thursday it is the same thing, nothing good.

It doesn't matter what the weather, sun, rain, snow, warm, cold, hot, it is all bad. But it is not just the weather, every conceivable conversation possible in two minutes is met with a complaint of the past, a negative view of the present or a pessimistic view of the future. It doesn't matter what she does, nothing is right. She is an unhappy camper.

I wonder if this is how people see me at times though, especially as I spend a fair bit of time thinking about, writing about, talking about problems. Am i an unhappy camper too?

Many years ago I was told to stop smiling as no one takes someone that smiles seriously. I laughed it off at first but soon realised that for the most part, this is true. People who are happy are often seen as ignorant of the world, for if they really understood all of the issues, they wouldn't be smiling. What do you think? Do you smile a lot?

I find myself smiling less and less these days yet, I do think that enjoy much of my life. I think this is because of what I have come to enjoy, rather than some shift in my personality. I find myself at an increasing rate spending my time dealing with problems. All kinds of problems, from the business related issues with clients to the various challenges at Steemit and of course, the myriad personal problems I face day to day also.

I like thinking through them and attempting to find solutions even if I am unable, unqualified, untalented and have no practical skills to influence or implement a solution. At least not directly. For me, investing my energy into this has personal value and has helped me in many ways. Perhaps it has helped others too, I cannot say.

What it does mean though is that I find it increasingly difficult to spend energy on useless activity, where useless is defined by me. I don't game, I don't watch TV or movies (never the news), I don't read magazines or listen to music all that often. Most of my time is spent in problems. Perhaps I am an addict.

I find that I am not the only one of course, there are quite a few (especially at Steemit) who are more than willing to engage more in the difficult than the pleasurable, but perhaps it is a dying breed. It may be becoming too easy to avoid the issues rather than deal with them or like in my case, attempt to deal with them.

Very rarely will my suggested solution by acceptable to directly apply but what I find is that putting it out there gets people thinking about something they hadn't thought about before, something they put down to gather dust, or something they are now able to see in a different perspective. There is something about being faced with ignorance that makes people act and I have plenty of ignorance across many areas to share.

The introduction of one issue into a conversation leads to more and more, on and on with each solution leading to the next set of problems. This never-ending process is quite valuable but, like the security guard, am I now the daily complainer? I don't see myself as such but perhaps from an external perspective I may very well appear so.

Not that this overly bothers me as I said, I enjoy what I am doing but it is interesting to think about. Perhaps it is a problem I should look at?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]