Recreational Whinge:  Religion is one of those topics that’s typically taboo to speak about as it has the potential to incite conflict.  Stuff it, this is my recreational whinge and I’d like to continue my rant on religion just a bit. 

But this time, I’ll keep the whinge small and the positive spin big.

The “Golden Rule” says “Treat others the way you wish to be treated” or a close enough interpretation of that.  I believe most people get this wrong.

I believe it should be practised as “Treat others they way they wish to be treated.”

If we could get that bit right, there would be less issues in our world, wouldn’t you agree?

Recreational Whinge:  My partner and I live in a cute little house, discretely tucked away in a laneway in a beautiful Bohemian neighbourhood in Sydney.  But we’re not hidden from view from our neighbours.  That’s a key point in today’s whinge. 

Next door is a tall apartment building and all the balconies look over on to our roof and back yard.  And our courtyard is filled with plants (I have nearly 70 potted plants in an otherwise concrete yard), there’s patio furniture, our two cats…all signs of life and habitation.  There should be no excuse for our neighbours not knowing that someone lives here.

Yet, every bloody day the neighbours are throwing their rubbish on our roof and in the back yard!  WTF?

Recreational Whinge:  Back in March of this year, I posted a blog on my other blog site, askacoach.com, about the most hateful thing I had ever seen.  I need to share this with you on this blog as this is the perfect forum to have a Recreational Whinge.  Here’s my original post called Coaching, Hatred and Ethics.

I’ll show you the video I’m referring to here as well (as you’re already here), but I need to put out a warning first:

This video contains the very strong (and hateful!!!) opinions of Fred Phelps, Paster of the Westboro Baptist Church in the USA.  You may not be able to watch this video because it is likely to get you really, bloody angry!   He claims that the horrible and deadly bushfires in Australia earlier this year were God’s wrath against Australia for some of the recent positive developments in protecting civil rights for gays and lesbians.  He goes on to say horrible and hateful things about the late Heath Ledger and others.

There, you’ve been warned.  Here’s the video:

Recreational Whinge: Australia is run by a Parliamentary System of government, specifically a bicameral one which means we have both upper (Senate) and lower (House of Representatives) houses.  There is a lot of interesting “stuff” out there about the pros and cons of such a system.  My recreational whinge though isn’t about the system, but about the behaviour of those in the system.

The political party that has the majority of the seats is “in power” and often referred to as “the Government” while the leading other party is often referred to “the Opposition”.

Now, I’ve been taught since immigrating to Australia that having a healthy opposition is good for government, which I agree, as it can provide some checks and balances in a Parliamentary system where that can sometimes be questioned.  On a common sense level, it is good to have multiple perspectives discussing, debating and working toward good public policy and management.

That unfortunately is not what I’m seeing.  Instead I see the Opposition simply being oppositional.

Recreational Whinge: If you’ve read my bio, you know I’m a professional life and executive coach.  Of course, I absolutely love what I do for a living and have been at it, growing myself and others, for 20 years.  I kind of feel I’ve “done my time” enough to have a recreational whinge about something that happens quite often:  People wanting to relinquish their rights to independent thought to their coach, or anyone else.

I’m sorry, but as the Australian saying goes, “That’s just not on, mate.”

I’ll give you an example:  I was running a workshop some time ago and after spending a couple of really full-on days exploring various problem solving models, new ways of thinking, brainstorming solutions, etc, and we had the walls literally covered with flip chart diagrams, participants would still throw out questions at the end of the second day saying, “but how do I address XYZ situation?”

Argh!

The reason I had a moment of frustration (which OK, I still carry a bit of from time to time) is that after all that exploration of various tools for their “toolkit”, some people still wanted someone else to solve their problem, to tell them specifically what to do, to take the action on their behalf.

Recreational Whinge: I live in a bustling inner-city neighbourhood and I love the high-energy vibe on the street that is normally there (did I mention I also live in the middle of the nightclub district?).  What I don’t love are all the people who don’t seem to notice that anyone else is on the footpath (sidewalk for the American readers) except them.

It annoys me that people aren’t watching where they’re walking, oblivious to anyone else around them, and it’s not like they’re looking in shop windows or some accident on the street has distracted them.  Their eyes are focused on the ground, or maybe even straight ahead, but nothing is registering.  They don’t move for me; they don’t even acknowledge I exist.

It feels as if I’m always the person who moves out of the way, out of respect for the other.  I’m the one that yields, like a constant game of chicken is being played and I chicken out first every time.

This is my first official whinge, or whine, or complaint or just sharing with you that sometimes I get pissed off and that’s ok.

Sometimes having a good old fashion whinge about something feels good.

I’ve been a life coach in one form or another for 20 years and I can tell you that we all need to just say what we’re thinking and feeling sometimes without needing to be “policitcally correct” and without the pressure to be positive and rise above it and all that personal development guru stuff!

See, it’s all those times that we never let out how we’re really feeling that it tears us up inside.

So a number of years back I heard someone say they were having a recreational whinge, meaning that they just wanted to have their say, have some fun with it and move on.  The person was making it clear that they had no intention of complaining forever about the point, just long enough to feel better.

I thought that was great and have been working with the concept of a recreational whinge ever since, for both myself, my partner and friends and with my coaching clients.

I’ve decided I really enjoy having a recreational whinge.