Complaints
I can't quite figure it out yet, but I think complaining is an annoying thing and possibly bad.

In what way, you ask?...

Well, see, I complain a lot to phil too...never realizing what I am starting to realize now. I've always thought that complaining was harmless and a form of healthy catharsis. (Damn Freud for trying to make all emotional verbiage a positive therapeutic process). However, I felt impatient towards people who felt the need to complain endlessly about their situation. This is related to the feeling of "burnout" that crisis center volunteers feel when they allow regular callers to continue rehashing topics that may be emotionally troubling but are at this point solution-less. Most of the time, I managed to hold back my impatience and provide minimal emotional diffusing by reflecting and empathizing with what the other party is complaining about. And of course, it depends on who I am talking to. I am harsher on my brothers than I am on my friends, for example. In the end, I realize that I get exceptionally mad with the other party when they vent without being cognizant of what they are doing.

For example, most people would complain about situations as an automatic reaction. I have a system in my mind of how much of this is acceptable according to my relationship with that person. If you are my other half, you should be able to do that and I should be able to accept it and deal with it promptly. If you are family, it is fine if the automatic reaction wasn't a protracted one, but if it is long, there has to be a moderate level of awareness and responsibility. That is, you should be aware that you are using me as a sounding board and eventually take the responsibility of solving your own problems either with things you've thought of yourself or with my suggestions or neither. If you are a friend, you may complain about frivolous things anytime, I wouldn't put too much effort into responding to those. But if you went on to complain about every trigger along the way that plunge you into emotional turmoil, I ask that you understand the effect you have on me, the listener. I may be glad to help, but there is a limit. Think carefully about what you wish to get from me, or I may be forced to ask "how may I help you" eventually. In other word, I am not a reporting station or a 24-hr one-man crisis line that you can sound-off all the tumultuous happenings in your life.

Perhaps this shows years of burnout from my work and my life, but I honestly think there is a huge part of my impatience that comes from my expectation that people take responsibility of what they do, say, think, experience, feel, choose, etc. A lot of times, complaining diffuses the responsibility (I see that in my own complaints too), and we escape from having to face something difficult. You may do it once, maybe twice, but it is not a long-term solution that results in positive change. I thank those people who complained to me and triggered my impatience because now I am starting to realize the bad points of complaining, which I had thought was entirely harmless before.

Anyway, articulating my system of allowance for complaints also brings forth more questions about altruism and whether it only appears in short spurts and isolated incidents as opposed to long-term altruistic giving.

There are still tons I do not understand about this world, and all I am learning now is the polishing of my self (reduction of my weaknesses, enhancement of my strengths), and the greater acceptance of others. I still want to be useful to others, but it seems that I have become picky with what I want to give.