Independent of how good life is, there seems to be a social preference for having a bit of a grumble. Imagine someone has a story about the horrific customer service from a utility company or government department. It’s hard not to chip in your own account on the unbelievably lousy service and incompetence - you’ve got one in your head right now, I’m sure. When these stories pop up, try replying with something like this: “I haven’t had any problems lately. Most services are great, and the people I talk to are jolly, lovely people. It is weirdly anti-social not to grumble about how useless things are.
Grant J Ryan
You can gauge how well folks are doing by what they grumble about. While the Covid pandemic raged in the rest of the world, the little town in New Zealand where I live, that had yet to have a single case, was getting grumpy about the pros and cons of putting fairy lights on historic buildings. So, let's have a look at some of the things we grumble about and how, with a bit of perspective, they are mostly high-quality problems. There is an old saying that when you are hungry you have one problem. When you have food, you have lots of problems.
The state of the health service is surely worth a grumble given the waiting times for hip replacements and all the other issues. But we live about 10 years longer than only 50 years ago thanks to all the wonderful new treatments. Yes, you may have to wait for a hip replacement but not long ago your only option was to be immobile in agony until you died…
Incompetent customer service from banks, utility companies, and government departments must have got worse? This is true, but most of us never have to talk to them – things mostly just work. Not that long ago, you got out your envelopes and check book once a month or had to line up to pay bills.
Plonker politicians must be worth a grumble. Yes, they can be embarrassing but think of everything you did last week and how much impact on you did they really have? If they are that bad have you joined a movement to get them replaced them with someone better?
The cost of a new phone. Well, you can buy a second-hand one, that is 3-4 years old, for virtually nothing. This is a phone that is so good that 5 years ago a billionaire could not buy it.
Can’t get Neil Young and Joni Mitchel on Spotify anymore. Well, you have easy access to more music than the richest music lovers in the world had 10 years ago.
Covid has been horrific but there will always be infectious diseases. There has never been a better time to have one given the speed of vaccines, treatments, and DNA analysis of variations.
It is quite fun observing the things people grumble about and taking a little perspective. Hearing lots of grumbling shouldn’t send you into a spiral of gloom as just seems to be a normal thing we humans do. With a bit of perspective, it's not so bad at all.
Comparonomics: Why life is better than you think, and how to make it even better by Grant J Ryan, out now, published by Big Idea Publishing. For more information go to www.comparonomics.com
