Tag Archives: behaving badly

Bad Behaviour

No matter what kind of soap you use, or how much, it is unlikely you can clean up the impacts of bad behavior.   The best way to ensure there is no fallout from the way you behave is to not behave badly in the first place.

Sometimes we stretch our behavioral limits beyond both cultural and social standards.  When acting outside of the norms you can be viewed as behaving badly (albeit a somewhat subjective measure).

Impacts/ Consequences

Our behavior has a real impact.   We can negatively (or positively) affect how others view us but also we could act in ways that cause others pain or harm them in some way (of course we can do good as well).

The things we do and how we act matter.   In some cases, these actions can have irrevocable results.  Bad behavior usually leads to negative outcomes while we may work hard to make amends or fix the damage, in reality, the past status quo can never be truly restored.

The results of bad behavior can never be fully cleaned up, regardless of how apologetic or remorseful we are.  It is more effective to avoid acting in ways that could harm your reputation.

The Simple Approach

Most often, if not always behaving badly stems from emotional override.  Our logic and restraint are overridden by a flood of emotions.

We feel it coming on and know what we are experiencing but for many, we are unable to hold back our passion, excitement, anger, frustration, etc.

The simple solution is to adopt a personal belief bad behavior has no value or benefit and must be avoided at all costs.  When you start to cycle up the bad behavior curve, stop, ignore everything around you.

Force yourself into a state of relaxation, take several deep breaths and then start again from the bottom – and stay there.

Complaining

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of affairs or an event.   In my experience complaining about things is a natural behavior, common to both myself and everyone I know.

For What Purpose?

Assuming there is some sort of motivation driving any particular behavior I wonder what motivates complaining.  That is, the behavior is focused on the negative, whats the value of that?

Logically the purpose probably falls into one of the following or in some cases multiple categories:

  • To effect a change.  For example things like; a repair, acknowledgement of fault; restitution and so  on
  • To make yourselve feel better by voicing your feelings, letting it go
  • Political manuevering to gain advantage (in theses cases the target of your complaint is something you want to discredit)
  • Group think, responding to peer pressure and joining the crowd, demonstrating you are with them not the others that are being complained about. (You belong to the IN crowd)
  • Pure vindictiveness, it’s an attack after all

Tread Carefully!

Complaining can develop feelings of self righteousness, morphing into indignation.  This might help you resolve some of your own  issues, but we are social animals and live with others.

Arrogant behaviours are not usually appreciated by others and could backfire on you.  Worse, constant complaining ( which is negative by definition)  can make you feel bad and unhappy.

For these reasons complaining  should be used sparingly and cautiously.  Understand exactly what you are trying to achieve and stop when you get it or if it appears you are not going to achieve your goal.

The negative results on you personally of uncontained complaining can be quite significant.