• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Complaining is silly

Published: Thursday, 19 February 2009

Either act, or forget.

Talking about someone else behind their back makes no difference to them, and all the difference to you. Your friends have to put up with you, you get frustrated, and sharing with your friends only reaffirms your complaints and causes them to perpetuate. I.e., in order for you to be consistent with what you say, you will find more and more evidence (that someone is bad/wrong/evil/stupid) to back up your word and “prove” to your friends your point of view is correct. The vicious circle continues with you and your friends, while the complaint (the someone) lives happily in oblivion. They are indifferent, you continue poking and you get to “be right”.

It doesn’t seem fair, does it? They’re the complaint, and you and your friends are the ones that suffer. What’s that about?

Give it up! And clean it up! Tell your friends you’re going to stop talking about X behind their back, tell X you’ve been speaking about them behind their back, but that you’re not committed to that anymore, and just let it go!

Complaining is silly. Either act, or forget.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Remembering Bob Paterson

    I flew from Cairns FNQ to Melbourne (a 3.5-hour flight!) for university. I didn’t have enough money to go to university. But I had faith in myself,...

  • Don't focus: search for something that sticks

    During my second to fourth years of university, I worked on Nudge, mew and Robogals.  I did various projects with all those initiatives over that...

  • You admire the things you can't do

    I've noticed in contests I've been on the judging panel for that those who have an expertise in a field, are more critical of entries that cross...

  • Focus with a laser on the things that achieve the most results

    Am I working towards a larger life goal?  Am I learning anything?  Does this help keep a roof over my head? I focused on a number of activities while I...

  • Virtual gigs

    I’ve been giving a lot of virtual speaking gigs recently, so I created this short video to give a glimpse at what my virtual speeches are like.

  • Questacon

    Gave a speech for IPAA ACT to 280 people at the CEOs and Young Professionals Network Breakfast.  It was a delight to find my friends at Questacon had a...

  • Insights from another student entrepreneur…

    Kieran O’Neill started up holylemon.com, a sight that shows funny videos, funny movies and funny videoclips when he was 14, and sold it for US$1.25...

  • Short Black | Sandra Sully podcast

    The lovely Sandra Sully invited me to appear on her podcast, Short Black, after we spoke at Vogue Codes together in 2018.  Check out our conversation here: ...

  • Think more

    All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. Blaise Pascal One of my favourite things to do is to sit there and...

  • Dividing time - most time spent on highest priority item

    If you're not spending most of your time working on your highest priority, then it's time to reevaluate what you're doing. My mum worked as a hotel room...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top