What Happens When You Never Think and Keep Complaining
MartinRaymondo
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MartinRaymondo 〰️ 〰️
A motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, often said complaining was the worst attitude of diseases.
It’s hard to argue with him as if you spent time with a complainer; it’s exhausting.
Complaining occasionally is okay, but those who keep complaining endlessly are like soul-sucking vampires.
I call them professional complainers.
On the weekend, I found myself on Medium scrolling through articles like a madman.
I got caught in that vortex you enter when you keep clicking on YouTube videos and end up in a weird place that sucks you in like a black hole.
These articles were bizarre and different from what I typically read.
The Professional Complainer
I stumbled upon an article by a writer, and it’s such a strange story that it makes me want to click on their profile.
After reading several articles, I noticed they had written aggressive headlines about Medium and its partner program.
Even more interestingly, many months before these headlines, they wrote a piece praising the Medium partner program as a great thing.
Over the next hour, late into the night, their articles fascinate me.
They mostly wrote about boring subjects, and their articles about earnings on Medium came off as closed-minded and entitled.
They always complained about wishing they made more money, but they could barely scrape together a quarter for an article.
Then came the article that caught my eye about them quitting the program.
They had made less than $15 in the partner program in six months and finally quit.
Will You Please Stop
The entitlement in these articles was off the charts.
Even if you write an article, it doesn’t mean you will make money.
They explained how they had spent 100 hours writing for the past six months only to make less than $15.
First of all, who cares?
Second, that’s not exactly how this works.
You could spend a year writing an 80,000-word novel only to sell twelve copies.
Writing is top-heavy, meaning you must put in the work and not expect anything in return for some time.
We often hear new writers making a grand in their second or third month, but this is extremely rare and shouldn’t discourage you.
Vincent Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime.
Anna Boch purchased it for 400 Francs; now, his paintings fetch millions.
He never complained.
He kept painting until the day he died.
You can learn a lot from Mr. Rohn.
We don’t want to get rich after we die, so I understand it’s a bit different.
Reading their articles triggered me because they only complained and never reflected on themselves.
They kept mentioning the time and effort they put into their articles while seeing little revenue.
They Were Blinded by Entitlement
They spent time and effort thinking of a subject, writing the article, and editing and formatting it, feeling entitled to income.
Suppose you bought a painting from a famous artist and paid $10,000.
The following year, they discovered that the same artist had painted the same thing, and someone had uncovered 1000 paintings.
The value of your original painting could become worthless, and nobody owes you anything, nor should they pay the same amount as you did before.
The truth about this writer was that their stuff was terrible, and I only kept reading because I was fascinated by how bad it was.
All their articles were one enormous paragraph with no formatting, sections, ellipses to separate, or even a single line space — nothing!
That made their articles very difficult to read.
Their content was also bland and about subjects that nobody cared about.
It’s okay to write about things you love even though the audience isn’t there; don’t expect it to be profitable.
. . .
Another glaring issue was that their publishing times needed to be more consistent.
They would have two weeks pass by without any new posts or a whole bunch in one day.
Both these methods could be better and should be avoided.
This writer should have taken the time to look inward to see what was wrong.
They took the easy way out, blaming everything except themselves — the audacity to blame Medium, its algorithm, and the readership.
I enjoyed reading about their journey, and if they weren’t so upset about the world, I might have sent them a message to offer some advice and help them earn some income.
I am not sure that’s the way to go, as I have tried that in the past, and people either ignore you or don’t listen.
Recently, I offered a few punctuation pointers to a writer here.
They responded, but I am still waiting to see any improvement.
I still notice the same basic mistakes in all their articles, which drives me crazy.
As for the original writer who quit, I hope to see them back on here and part of the partner program one day.
I wish them nothing but the best.