{"id":583,"date":"2013-04-30T14:18:34","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T14:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/?p=583"},"modified":"2013-04-30T14:18:34","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T14:18:34","slug":"your-venting-doesnt-seem-to-be-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2013\/your-venting-doesnt-seem-to-be-working","title":{"rendered":"Your Venting Doesn’t Seem To Be Working"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just today I was looking at Tweets from students I lovingly try to disciple and there was one overwhelmingly common thread: These students were all incredibly angry. Not just a bit upset. There were curse words aimed at life, aimed at people, aimed at the sky. Blame was being hurled, frustration was being spewed, and trash-talking was present too. It was too much to take in without commenting on. And so I like to think that this is my chance to write back in more than 140 characters to each of these students to ask an important question about their venting: \u201cIs it working?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Venting4\"<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start off with a much larger perspective and back away from all the specific details for right now. Let\u2019s not go to what your sister said or did or what happened at school that ticked you off. Let\u2019s get to what you want from life. Do you want to be happy or sad? Do you want to feel content or grumpy? We\u2019re going to have problems in life, all of us will. But would you like to have more of them or less? And would you like to grow from them so they happen less frequently or repeat them as often as possible?<\/p>\n

Now I imagine that it seems like a waste of time to ask those questions. I mean, except for the incredibly dark student with heavy eye-liner who says that they want to be sad, feel grumpy, and doesn\u2019t mind having problems, I think we all know what the answers should <\/i>be. Should be. We should<\/i> want to be happy, feel content, and learn from life\u2019s problems so we experience them less. And this brings us to the problem with the way we handle life\u2019s challenges so often…<\/p>\n

The idea goes something like this: I\u2019m ticked. So I\u2019m going to get this off my chest, vent a little, and express my anger to the world around me.<\/em><\/p>\n

In some sense, this makes us feel better. We feel we\u2019ve expressed ourselves, something that\u2019s important to pretty much all of us<\/a>. Now it feels like people can at least suffer with us or that we\u2019ve gotten it \u201coff our chest\u201d if nothing else. But there\u2019s a problem with that. It doesn\u2019t actually work.<\/p>\n

If venting our anger helped make our life better then I wouldn\u2019t see repeat offenders on Twitter or we wouldn\u2019t have those people that we all know who are continually <\/i><\/b>complaining to us about their lives. You know who I\u2019m talking about? If venting solved problems there would inevitably be less of it instead of more. But it doesn\u2019t seem to be going away, does it?<\/p>\n

So why are you so angry? Why do the things you post just ooze with bitterness, resentment, hurt, frustration, anger, and dissatisfaction? You need to ask yourself that! I mean, is that the kind of person you want to be? Because it sure seems like that\u2019s the kind of person you\u2019re becoming, and those who love you certainly don\u2019t want that for you! So why would you choose to let the junk of life define you. It certainly doesn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t let your problems win. You\u2019re better than that. When you \u201cget them off your chest\u201d it\u2019s like throwing a pile of cow manure in a fan. Sure, you\u2019ve moved it, but now it\u2019s all over the place. Take a look at the happiest, most content people in your life. Newsflash: It\u2019s not because they don\u2019t face a ton of crap in their life. It\u2019s that they choose to deal with it differently. Rather than throwing it on the fan for everyone to get a piece of it, they use it to grow something in their life that they do <\/i>want. Maybe patience, a strong will, love, or something else.<\/p>\n

So deal with your problems. Give your concerns and worries to God. Talk one-on-one with a trusted friend who will speak life to you when you\u2019re down. Get off Twitter and read the encouraging words of God found in the Bible. Make intentional choices to actually make your life better and less worthy of complaining about. Because, frankly, your venting doesn\u2019t seem to be working at that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just today I was looking at Tweets from students I lovingly try to disciple and there was one overwhelmingly common Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}