7.11.2004

An Inspirational Story from Maya Angelou

And the person would reply, "Not so good today, Sister Henderson. You see, it's this summer heat. I just hate it. It just frazzles me up and frazzles me down. It's almost killing me." Then my grandmother would stand stoically, her arms folded, and mumble, "Uh-huh, uh-huh." And she would cut her eyes at me to make certain that I had heard the lamentation.

As soon as the complainer was out of the store, my grandmother would call me to stand in front of her. And then she would say the same thing she had said at least a thousand times, it seemed to me. "Sister, did you hear what Brother So-and-So or Sister Much-to-Do complained about?" And I would nod. Mamma would continue, "Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this weather that person was grumbling about. So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain."

It is said that persons have few teachable moments in their lives. Mamma seemed to have caught me at each one I had. Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood." - Maya Angelou

<Note from JobFairy.com: How true... You are the one who sends signals that let people know how they can treat you. You might not think of Maya Angelou's work having much to do with IT and work, but this one was right on target. Whining is a response that indicates you are uncomfortable with the situation, but that you feel powerless to do anything more about it than vocalize. That is just inviting bad behavior out of people who are inclined towards it.>