In the early days of Collegewise, when I would spend my days meeting with families, there were always a few names that I was notably less excited to see on my calendar for the day. And for me, they all fit into the same category—complainers.
For these families, every meeting included time spent listening to who or what had somehow disappointed, frustrated, or otherwise seemingly worked against them.
My Spanish teacher won’t raise my B+ to an A-.
The counselors at our school don’t know anything.
The principal refuses to change our school’s class ranking policy.
Our point guard only gets to start because her dad is friends with the coach.
My son should have gotten into AP US History—he’s smarter than most of those kids in that class.
It’s not fair that I have to compete with kids who go to easier high schools.
Of course that kid gets straight A’s. His mother spends her days just standing over him.
(None of those examples are fictional or embellished, by the way.)
Sometimes it was kids. Other times it was their parents. And in the worst cases, the entire family would complain, feeding off each other’s negativity.
I’m not talking about customer service challenges. If a customer was unhappy for some reason, getting annoyed by it wouldn’t have helped me or them fix the problem. That’s part of running a business.
These complainers had goals in mind, and anything at all, real or imagined, that seemed to get in the way, they perceived as a personal slight, a misfortune, or an injustice. There was nothing that could be done to make them feel better. They were going to gripe about it, one way or another.
Here’s the most important thing I wish those, and today’s, complainers could understand—none of their complaining ever once improved their situation. In fact, they were actively working against their own goals by expending so much time and energy focusing on things that were in the past, out of their control, or inconsequential.
Life isn’t perfect, and neither is the college admissions process. The happiest, most successful, most productive people find a way to accept those imperfections as par for the course. If they can do something to improve their situation, they’ll do it. If they can’t, they’ll move on to other things.
If your family is feeling negatively about the ride to college, if you’ve traded excitement for anger or frustration, try to stop and take a step back. Is whatever’s eating you worth this energy? Will this matter to you in five years? Are you making it worse by focusing—and complaining about—something that’s done, or out of your control, or comparatively insignificant, or all of the above?
Complaining will always be an option. But it will almost never be a good one. And it’s never an effective strategy.