One of those night time meandering thoughts that won't let me sleep unless I write it.

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Variations of ideas that are derivatives of old sayings, and things my father said to me are going through my mind.   The natural instinct will be for people to apply these to other people and events.   In truth there only is one mind we truly control.   Our own.   In reality these things are more useful as inner reflection.

The thought began simply with "*It is difficult to float something nice on a sea of complaints...*" this lead to many other places in my mind.

My father used to say things like "*If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all*" and he also said something about moods spreading.   Basically, if you are in a piss poor mood (*bad mood*) and you choose to express that to others then you likely won't make yourself feel better, but you likely will spread that bad mood to others.   This can also be done in the inverse and good moods can spread.

I understood all of this for a long time.   Now realistically we cannot live in an imaginary bubble where we ignore bad things and never speak about them in an attempt to only say nice things.   That is unrealistic, and it leads to ignoring problems rather than solving them.

However, it should apply to the trivial things.   The thing you wish to complain about will it actually make you feel better?  Will it change anything for the better?   If you are sure then it's probably worth doing.   Otherwise it likely will just spread.

Exaggeration is also a very common technique these days.   "*I'm the only one who does X*", or "*No one ever helps me with Y*".    Now those things could be true.    Yet in reality I see people exaggerate.   While you may be the one that does the majority of X or it may not be common to get help with Y.   Is your goal to get more help or to piss off the people that no matter how rare it may be can recall when they have done X and/or Y?    The result of your exaggerated complaint based upon absolutes can just as easily make them think "*F@ck you then I'll make that statement a fact*".

Thinking these things lead me to some other places.

I've lately written about things like "*If you are always looking for things to be offended by, then you will find it*".

I wrote about maybe all it would take is for people to switch from assuming the negative, to instead assuming the positive and most of the situations people decide to be offended about would cease to even bother them, and the cycle of being offended could mostly stop.

Tonight I realized that I have been thinking about the old saying "*Seek and yea shall find*" in some new and different ways.   People think about seek and you shall find in ways of opportunity I think in most cases, yet I think it can go further than that.

Seek misery and you shall find misery.

Seek offense and you shall be offended.

There are of course exceptions.   The key here is what type of environment do you wish to live in?  Do you wish to live in a feedback cycle of offense, a feedback cycle of complaints, or would you rather it be a positive environment?

Seek inspiration and you shall find it.

Now the biggest thought for me here was actually that title line "*It is difficult to float something nice on a sea of complaints...*"

You may give compliments, you may be up beat, and without realizing it you may spend far more time complaining than you do those things.   It is very possible someone may eventually say is "*All you do is complain*" which will trigger your defense mechanism as they will be doing one of those exaggerations I mentioned above.   Your mind will go to times you said something positive and you may think "*Why did I even bother?*"    

The key here.   It is difficult for a positive to be noticed if it is surrounded by a horde of negatives.

I started mentally picturing a ship that could be positive and the complaints are like a leak.   The ship is taking on water.   At the beginning it is easy to plug, but at some point that boat is going to sink.    If you notice it before it sinks you need to realize a few positives suddenly will not resolve the problem.   It'll take some time to bail out that water and patch the hole.

Yes... this can be relationship advice.   Which I don't typically give.

Yet it can apply to so much more than that.

The only place we can truly put it to practice is in ourselves.   We can share it with others, but how we present it can simply be viewed as an attack if it is for example stated in the middle of some argument.   It likely won't have the immediate desired effect then.   You might get lucky and it might plant mental seeds that lead to change down the line, but you could steer into even rougher waters if you say these things to someone else in the midst of a heated argument.

You can practice them yourself.     You can share them when not in an argument as just a discussion of mental ideas.

You can build upon these ideas.   You can come up with your own.

The main thing is I couldn't fall back to sleep due to my mind endlessly looping on this stuff.   Now that I've written it maybe I can go to sleep...