This morning I rose with the thought implanted by Brooks, "do things with people, not for". As I searched that idea, I wasn't quite getting what I was looking for. I was getting articles about being a people pleaser, or why people don't support you, or when you don't feel interested in people. I was looking more for this idea about building something together. The web, being as self-helpy as it is, could not catch what I was meaning with the ambiguosness of prepositions. But I did get on a path that seemed meaningful, starting with Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People:
Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.
Simple enough. Not because someone else deserves it, per say, but because you are the kind of person that does good in the world. But it still had that "for" idea that I was looking to avoid. Doing things "for" people presumes that you know what they need, and maybe even that they are waiting for you to do it. Not always the case. I find a lot of the things I am doing for people, they have no idea I am considering and when it comes there way, it may be a nice additive, but not an essential piece of what they feel they need. So these things I am really doing for me.
Changing the focus to doing things with people will help my doing fors materialize as a lot more meaningful. Build something together.
Interestingly, I'll have to come back to some of these ideas, because the second half of the morning venture found me searching articles about complaining. Harvard Business Review and Maya Angelou say don't do it. William F. Buckley says complain. I see his point. We've become kind of docile, but I tend to side with HBR and Angelou. We don't need to complain as much as see what needs to change; and head into some kind of action.
To Buckley's point, though, action seems pitiful. The juggernaut of reality is so big, what are my little actions going to do? Well, I'm not quite sure, but I know I cannot stand by and do nothing, so I've got to do something.
But what?
- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/835156-do-things-for-people-not-because-of-who-they-are
- https://dailystoic.com/a-stoic-response-to-complaining/
- https://www.sanjuan.edu/cms/lib8/CA01902727/Centricity/Domain/218/Complain%20by%20William%20Buckley.pdf
- https://kensho.life/weekly-happiness-booster/moan-less-complain-better
- https://hbr.org/2021/04/managing-a-chronic-complainer
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/moments-matter/201803/complaining
