Complaining: The Happiness Killer

In 15th-century Germany, there was an expression: Greiner, Zanner, which can be translated as “a chronic (长期的) complainer.” Are you a bit of a Greiner, Zanner? If so, you’re not alone. Survey data show that customers today are more than twice as likely to complain about a product or service as they were in 1976. A U. K.-based survey also observed a rise in job dissatisfaction over a two-year period before autumn 2022.

Complaints can be grouped into different categories. As is reported, 45 percent of complaints concern the behavior of others. For instance, parents repeatedly criticize their children for small issues like messy bedrooms or dirty clothes. Another 29 percent focus on personal discomfort. A common complaint in this category might be about feeling too hot in a room without air conditioner. The remaining 26 percent involve unpleasant obligations like unnecessary work meetings people are forced to attend.

The problem with all of these complaints is that it can feel helpful — but it typically isn’t . Although complaining might offer temporary relief, it’s bad for your happiness in the long run. Researchers who measured people’s mood before and after they complained found that those complainers’ mood was significantly worsening. Besides, complaining can also lower the happiness of the people around you. In some relationships, the negative effect can pass like a virus to those exposed. In other words, when people see others’ complaints expressing anger, disgust and sadness, they can, in turn, feel similar emotions.

As the 20th-century Bulgarian philosopher Archimandrite Seraphim Aleksiev observed, “Complaining is like the winter frost which, when it falls, destroys all the labors of the gardeners.”

How to Be a Better Boss

Workplaces have changed dramatically over the past few years. Teams have become more isolated owing to remote work. Technology has brought great benefits but also constant interruptions, from endless Zoom calls to message flows on Slack. With each shift, the job of the manager has become harder. Many report feeling burnt-out, overloaded and confused.

Yet in real life everyone suffers when management is bad and benefits when it is good Research based on a long-running survey of management techniques has found that well-managed firms tend to be more productive, export more and spend more on research and development.

So the prize for better management is big. But how to obtain it? Read enough management books and you might conclude that managers need to change their personality thoroughly, becoming either Machiavelli’s prince or a Marvel superhero. However, study successful managers, and more practical lessons can be drawn.

One is to be clear about a firm’s processes. Managers should make clear the purpose of a team, what a meeting should achieve and who will take a decision. Meeting agendas at GSK, a British drugs firm, clearly say whether an item is for awareness, to gather participants’ input or intended to make a decision. Such clarity means that everyone knows what they are doing, and why.

Management isn’t all about piling up tasks, meetings or processes. A second lesson is that managers can add value by deleting. Sparing workers from pointless meetings, emails and projects frees them to concentrate on the work that fattens the bottom line. At the start of the year, Shopify, an e-commerce firm, deleted 12,000 repeated meetings from its employees’ calendars. The useful ones were eventually added back. But the firm says that meetings are down by 14% since the mass deletion while productivity has gone up by a similar amount.

How your unique story can get you hired?

You’re sitting at your computer to apply for your dream job, but suddenly you’re not confident enough to get it. So you don’t even submit the application. It is natural for you to experience self-doubt at such a crucial moment, especially if you’re people of color, first generation college student, or you don’t have a traditional background. The secret is to transform how you perceive your own story.

Ask yourself two questions. The first one: why do you want to do this work? Maybe you already know the kind of job or work environment that makes you happy, or maybe you haven’t quite figured that out yet. Usually, your personal experiences can help give you clues. For example, your brother had to overcome his dyslexia (诵读困难症), and you helped him with his reading. Gradually, you became interested in education. That motivated you to work as a teacher.

The second question you have to ask yourself: how can you tell your story to exhibit the unique qualities you have? For example, you undertook multiple jobs unrelated to your major while you were in college. When you’re in an interview, go ahead and talk about them, because it will show the employer that you have time management skills and a strong passion for work. Employers are looking for well-rounded individuals that are capable of accomplishing various job tasks.

Go back and reflect on those tough questions that you need to answer. The answers are what makes you you. Reframing your story can remake your confidence over and over again, but it takes time. It’s like running a marathon. You have to train and practice. When you learn to practice your story, tell it with assurance. You’re sure to stand out among all the candidates.

9 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Multicultural Education

The changing populations of students in American schools has brought come changes in what is taught in the schools as well.

One in three students in U.S. schools is a member of a racial or ethnic minority group, and one in five lives with a parent who was born outside the United States. Ethnic and racial minorities have criticized schools and textbooks for focusing too much on the literature and historical events of Anglo-Europeans or white males. They believe that schools have almost ignored the contributions of African Americans, Latinos, or Native Americans. Some have charged that American history has been told from the perspective of Anglo-Europeans, rather than exploring historical events from the various perspectives of those involved.

For example, the frontier movement west has been presented more from the perspective of descendants of white settlers than from the perspectives of the descendants oi the Native Americans who were moved in the process.

During the 1990s. schools began to seriously examine their curricula and to try to incorporate more varied cultural information and perspectives into education. These attempts to provide multicultural education have ranged from simply adding information and literature to the current textbooks and curricula, to more sweeping attempts to transform the basic curriculum into one which is more reflective of the diversity of the students who will study it.

At the most basic level, many schools celebrate African-American History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month, or they have international festivals which include dancing, singing, and foods from the native countries of their students. At a deeper level, many schools have adopted history or social studies textbooks which include more information about African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other minorities, or American literature texts that include poetry and fiction written by Americans of all ethnic backgrounds.

In some colleges, the traditional set of Western great books, sometimes called “the canon,” has been replaced by a much broader set of literary texts, reflecting the experiences and backgrounds of the students who will be reading them.

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There is no denying that it is a critical decision to make as to which subject to choose in the upcoming semester.

From my point of view,