Energy Vampires

Quite recently during one of our breaks held in between lectures, a couple of my friends were lamenting over something – what exactly it was I’m actually glad I can’t remember because it isn’t worth the trouble. I then retorted, why label it difficult? I prefer to call them less easy. And then I was accused of being self-delusional and lying to myself. But was that really the case?

The little things that may seem insignificant will add up and stare right back in your face before you know it. Be it that little section of Appendix B that you deemed frivolous and hence skipped but actually came out in your exams, or the break-up that resulted from small gestures or “signs” that your significant other has been conveying which you conveniently chose to ignore; somehow it will return to haunt you and I’m no stranger to that experience.

That conversation that we had was an energy vampire, classified as the Count Dracula of energy vampires.

You’ll never hear someone described as the “World’s Most Accomplished Critic”. Complaining and inactionable criticism is the highest form of mental masturbation. While it’s incredibly difficult to build and do amazing things, almost anyone can point out flaws. But finding fault does not equal intelligence. There is no Nobel Criticism Prize. Action is the true nuclear weapon.

Whether it comes from you, or the people around you, complaining is the Count Dracula of energy vampires. It will gnaw at your soul and attract even more things to complain about in your life.

Solution: Three words: It’s your fault. For any situation you complain about, you have three options: leave it, change it, or don’t change it. By taking full responsibility, you can actually do something about your current life situation, instead of drowning in the victim mentality.

And very rightly so. Any army bloke will tell you complaining in the face of difficulty counts for next to nothing. When you’re sweating it out under the sun, lugging around an obsolete signal set and knowing jolly well you’ll be getting less than 3 hours of sleep tonight, the last thing you want to hear is someone complaining that he chose the wrong pack of combat rations or is getting more mosquito bites by the day.

But to put things into context, complaining about a tough module followed by a suitable course of action (more hours into revision) is fine by me. Complaining just for the sake of complaining, is bearable and understandable if it’s for the first few times but not when the same old topic gets revisited for the umpteenth time. Furthermore, this negative energy gets passed on to the people in the conversation and if they choose to hold on to it, will most likely pass it on to the next unsuspecting individual. If I were to use an analogy, it’d be like smoking – It harms the complainer, but does even more harm to the people around.

There are many energy vampires that I’d like to talk about but they’ll have to wait until another day because it’s getting late and a morning class looms. I’m also taking a liking to productivity/motivation articles and will try to post more of these in the future.