Complaining About The Weather Quotes

There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.

See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

When we complain about the weather, we are, in reality, murmuring against God.

Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards, and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of that plowing that person was grumbling about. So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.

We get a lot of the sky is falling on the weather reports, so when something big does hit, people never expect it. If it's not as bad as the reports predicted, we complain. If it's worse than expected, we complain. If it's just as bad as predicted, we complain about that, too, because we'll say that the reports are wrong so often, there was no way to know they'd be right this time. It just gives people something to complain about.

Can you give some more examples of ordinary unconsciousness?   See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what

Many rulers would have spent the morning complaining loudly about the cold and the discomfort, as if their complaints would actually serve to alleviate the situation and as if their attendants should be able to do something about it. Not the emperor. He accepted the situation knowing that he could do nothing to change the weather. Best to endure it without making life more difficult for those around him.

There are events we can't control, but we believe we can. We waste time complaining about the weather, or futilely trying to control or manipulate spouses or employees or our children. Conversely, there are events we can control, but we believe we can't.

There we go: yesterday we had the first complaints about the warm weather! “It always gets so muggy here in the Netherlands!” according to fat Bakker. Only two days ago he was still complaining about the cold. Sometimes I’d like to kill him.

Not even once has life or the weather complained about a human being.

Censorship became so stringent that even a scene in which a character complained too strongly about the weather could be considered “antisocial” and ordered removed.

I could wish somebody wanted to talk about something besides the weather. Everyone complains about it.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather - you just have to get on with it.

Let's not waste another minute complaining about the weather. Let's just learn to put on better clothes.

Hannah is missing school because one night, her father exiled her and her mother and Allison from the house. This was, obviously, somewhat insane. But it wasn't more insane or cruel than other things he's done, which is not to say he's insane or cruel all the time. He's himself; he can be perfectly pleasant; he's the weather system they live with , and all the behavior, whenever he is around, hinges on his mood. Don't the three of them understand that living with him simply is what it is? To complain or resist would be as useless as complaining about or resisting a tornado.

People complain about cold weather during winter, about hot weather during summer and about rain in rainy season. People who are single are depressed that they are single, those who are married think that singles are having more fun, people with darker skin want to get fair skin, people with white skin want tanning and the list never ends. Sometimes I think what would happen to people’s life if you take their complaining habit out of their life? -Subodh Gupta author, "Stress Management a Holistic Approach-5 Steps Plan

She could easily have remarked on the heavy skiing weather, or asked how he could even see the road, or complained about the town not getting its ploughs out-- anything at all to show interest or pretend to show interest, the way people talk to make things a little more pleasant-- but no, not Katri Kling. There she stood squinting through her cigarette smoke, her black hair like a mane shrouding her face as she leaned over the table.

He recalls a lot of family worry about what he was going to do, and while he still sent in the occasional sketch to radio shows, he acknowledges that his confidence was extremely low. Despite his subsequent success and wealth, this propensity for a lack of confidence has continued. “I have terrible periods of lack of confidence,” he explains. “I just don’t believe I can do it and no evidence to the contrary will sway me from that view. I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather—you just have to get on with it.” So has that approach helped him? “Not necessarily,” he shrugs.

To complain about the rain, or lack of it, shows a mind out of tune with nature. Align with nature, and, rain or shine, the weather is always welcome.

Nobody ever remembers the weather, so they always complain about it being hot in summer and cold in winter.

You know that quote, right? ‘Everyone complains about the weather, and nobody does anything about it?’ 

Common enemies bring parties closer together and make the negotiation easier. That’s why people complain about the weather;

Summer was always the worst season. Everyone always complained about winter, but winter was simple, you just didn't go outside. Summer always tried to sneak in where it was not wanted.

She turned to him, lifted her eyes, and smiled. “Want to hear a joke?” “Dying to.” “A soldier is being led to his execution,” Tatiana began. “‘Some bad weather we’re having,’ he says to his convoy. ‘Look who’s complaining,’ they say. ‘We have to go back.’” Alexander laughed so instantly and loudly, his merry eyes never leaving her face, that Tatiana felt herself—just a little bit—melting within. “That’s funny, Tania,” he said. “Thank you.” She smiled and said quickly, “I have another joke: ‘General, what do you think about the upcoming battle?’” Alexander said, “I know this one. The general says, ‘God knows it will be lost.’” Tatiana continued, “‘Then why should we try?’” And Alexander finished, “‘To find out who is the loser.’” They both smiled and looked away from each other. “Your straps are untied,” she heard him say. “My what?” “Your straps. At the back of the dress. They’ve come undone. Here, turn your back to me a little more. I’ll tie them for you.” She turned her back to him and felt his fingers pulling on the satin ribbons. “How tight do you want them?” “That’s good,” she said hoarsely, not breathing. It occurred to her that he must be seeing down to the small of her bare back underneath the straps, and she became suddenly and keenly self-conscious.

Never allow yourself to complain about anything — not even the weather. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else. Never compare your lot with another’s. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise. Never dwell on tomorrow — remember that [tomorrow] is God’s, not ours.1

Colt complained about everything—the tree, the snowball that hit him in the ballsack, the cold weather, how Trigger’s horse had escaped again, about how he would never let a girl tell him which tree to chop down, and about how he’d eaten all the rest of the muffins and was still hungry—basically life in general.

Whilst I complain about Edinburgh, I like it here really. They say that makes me dour, it’s Scottish for miserable bastard. They gave a single word in a Gaelic that means ‘my eternal doom is upon me’, I can’t remember it right now. They are an old nation. They have a great wit at times. They need it to survive the damn weather.

them? • Don’t fight the Trail. You have to flow with it. Be cooperative with the Trail, neither competitive nor combative. • Don’t expect the Trail to respect or to be sensitive to your comfort level and desire to control your environment. In your avoidance of discomfort, you may become more uncomfortable. Fear is weight. • Time, distance, terrain, weather, and the Trail itself cannot be changed. You have to change. Don’t waste any of your energy complaining about things you have no control over. Instead, look at yourself and adapt you mind, heart, body, and soul to the Trail. Remember, you will be a guest in someone else’s house the entire journey. • The Trail knows neither prejudice nor discrimination. Don’t expect any favors from the Trail. The Trail is inherently hard

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

There is a quality in the people of Dover that may well be the key to the coming German disaster. They are incorrigibly, incorruptibly unimpressed. The German, with his uniform and his pageantry and his threats and plans, does not impress these people at all. The Dover man has taken perhaps a little more pounding than most, not in great blitzes, but in every-day bombing and shelling, and still he is not impressed. Jerry is like the weather to him. He complains about it and then promptly goes on with what he was doing...Weather and Jerry are alike in that they are inconvenient and sometimes make messes. Surveying a building wrecked by a big shell, he says, "Jerry was bad last night," as he would discuss a windstorm.

I don't believe the sickest people that I meet throughout my day at work are in the business of having outlandish desires, either. I don't think they are staring at the square-tiled ceiling of the intensive-care unit and dreaming of being an astronaut or an explorer. I don't think they're holding the hand of their wife and thinking, "I hope we win the lottery and become rich." Perhaps I am wrong, but I think they are, for the most part, simply hoping they will get to be a part of life again. They are hoping for all the things we take for granted every day: the ability to breathe by yourself, to get out of bed, to sit on a toilet or lie in a bath. To swallow your food and choose what you want for breakfast. To walk out into the world and appreciate all its beauty, or complain about the weather - but to have that choice.

Whatever the weather, Bjartur always left the others when the meal was over. He would lie down on a truss of hay with his hat over his face and fall asleep at once. As soon as he moved in his sleep he would roll off the truss, sometimes into a pool, and would be awake immediately, which pleased him greatly. He considered that it was proper for a man to sleep for four minutes during the daytime, and he was always in a bad temper if he slept longer. The womenfolk wormed in under the hay-rick when they had finished eating. Then the shivering would begin, for they were sitting on wet grass, and they would rise with hands benumbed and pins and needles in their legs and go to look for their rakes. And if Bjartur heard them complaining about the damp, he would reply that it was pretty miserable wretches that minded at all whether they were wet or dry. He could not understand why such people had been born. 'It's nothing but damned eccentricity to want to be dry,' he would say. 'I've been wet more than half my life and never been a whit the worse for it.

The best way to let go of stored pockets of pain is to practice. Just as you practice scales to learn the piano or practice a sport to get good at it, so you practice letting go to learn how to do it. You start with simple things. We call these the low-hanging fruit. There are many situations each day when you create inner disturbance for absolutely no good reason. Bothering yourself about the car in front of you does no good at all. It only makes you tense and uptight. The cost-benefit analysis is one-hundred-percent cost and zero benefit. Letting go of that tendency should be easy, but it’s not. You will find that you’re in the habit of insisting and demanding that things should be the way you want, even if it’s irrational. Things are the way they are because of all the influences that made them that way. You are not going to change the weather by complaining about it. If you are wise, you will start to change your reactions to reality instead of fighting with reality. By doing so, you will change your relationship with yourself and with everything else.

The thing I really like about Jase is that he’s as obsessed with ducks as I am. I rarely took my boys hunting with me when they were very young. In fact, I never took them when I was still an outlaw. “Not this time, boys, we might be running from the game warden,” I’d tell them. But after I repented and came to Jesus Christ, I started taking my sons hunting with me, beginning with Alan. Before we moved to where we live now, it was a pretty long haul from town to the Ouachita River bottoms. Alan got carsick nearly every time I took him hunting, but he didn’t think I knew. We stopped at the same gas station every time, and he’d walk around back and lose his breakfast before he climbed back into the truck. I was proud of him for never complaining. I took Jase hunting for the first time when he was five. He was shooting Pa’s heavy Belgium-made Browning twelve-gauge shotgun, which he could barely even hold up. It kicked like a mule! The first time Jase shot the gun, it kicked him to the back of the blind and flipped him over a bench. “Did I get him?” Jase asked. I knew right then that I had another hunter in the family, and Jase is still the most skilled hunter of all my boys. I trained Jase to take over the company by teaching him the nuances of duck calls and fowl hunting, and he is still the person in charge of making sure every duck call sounds like a duck. Not only did Jase design the first gadwall drake call to hit the market, he also invented the first triple-reed duck caller. Jase and I live to hunt ducks. We track ducks during the season through a nationwide network of hunters, asking how many ducks are in their areas and what movements are expected. Then we check conditions of wind and weather fronts that might influence duck movement. We talk it all over during the day and again each morning, before the day’s hunt, as we prepare to leave for the blind. When Kay and I began to ponder becoming less active in the Duck Commander business, we offered its management to Jase, who had been most deeply involved in the company. But he had no desire to get into management. Jase likes building duck calls and doesn’t really enjoy the business aspects of the company, like making sales calls or dealing with clients and sponsors. Like me, Jase is most comfortable when he’s in a duck blind and doesn’t care for the details that come with running a company. Jase only wants to build duck calls, shoot ducks, and spend time with his family (he and his wife, Missy, have three kids).

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest? Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished. As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.

That black horse we used for packin’ up here is the most cantankerous beast alive,” Jake grumbled, rubbing his arm. Ian lifted his gaze from the initials on the tabletop and turned to Jake, making no attempt to hide his amusement. “Bit you, did he?” “Damn right he bit me!” the older man said bitterly. “He’s been after a chuck of me since we left the coach at Hayborn and loaded those sacks on his back to bring up here.” “I warned you he bites anything he can reach. Keep your arm out of his way when you’re saddling him.” “It weren’t my arm he was after, it was my arse! Opened his mouth and went for it, only I saw him outter the corner of my eye and swung around, so he missed.” Jakes’s frown darkened when he saw the amusement in Ian’s expression. “Can’t see why you’ve bothered to feed him all these years. He doesn’t deserve to share a stable with your other horses-beauties they are, every one but him.” “Try slinging packs over the backs of one of those and you’ll see why I took him. He was suitable for using as a pack mule; none of my other cattle would have been,” ian said, frowning as he lifted his head and looked about at the months of accumulated dirt covering everything. “He’s slower’n a pack mule,” Jake replied. “Mean and stubborn and slow,” he concluded, but he, too, was frowning a little as he looked around at the thick layers of dust coating every surface. “Thought you said you’d arranged for some village wenches to come up here and clean and cook fer us. This place is a mess.” “I did. I dictated a message to Peters for the caretaker, asking him to stock the place with food and to have two women come up here to clean and cook. The food is here, and there are chickens out in the barn. He must be having difficulty finding two women to stay up here.” “Comely women, I hope,” Jake said. “Did you tell him to make the wenches comely?” Ian paused in his study of the spiderwebs strewn across the ceiling and cast him an amused look. “You wanted me to tell a seventy-year-old caretaker who’s half-blind to make certain the wenches were comely?” “Couldn’ta hurt ‘t mention it,” Jake grumbled, but he looked chastened. “The village is only twelve miles away. You can always stroll down there if you’ve urgent need of a woman while we’re here. Of course, the trip back up here may kill you,” he joked referring to the winding path up the cliff that seemed to be almost vertical. “Never mind women,” Jake said in an abrupt change of heart, his tanned, weathered face breaking into a broad grin. “I’m here for a fortnight of fishin’ and relaxin’, and that’s enough for any man. It’ll be like the old days, Ian-peace and quiet and naught else. No hoity-toity servants hearin’ every word what’s spoke, no carriages and barouches and matchmaking mamas arrivin’ at your house. I tell you, my boy, though I’ve not wanted to complain about the way you’ve been livin’ the past year, I don’t like these servents o’ yours above half. That’s why I didn’t come t’visit you very often. Yer butler at Montmayne holds his nose so far in t’air, it’s amazin’ he gets any oxhegen, and that French chef o’ yers practically threw me out of his kitchens. That what he called ‘em-his kitchens, and-“ The old seaman abruptly broke off, his expression going from irate to crestfallen, “Ian,” he said anxiously, “did you ever learn t’ cook while we was apart?” “No, did you?” “Hell and damnation, no!” Jake said, appalled at the prospect of having to eat anything he fixed himself.

Was it even worth the effort of a polite conversation if a woman could complain about warm and sunny weather in February?

It is a passing strange, George said. In the summer, I complained about the heat. I remember it was unbearable, but the memory no longer seems truly real. With the white ground and frost in the air, I convince myself I would give anything to sweat once more - and if I did, I do not doubt I would yearn to return to this cold. Man is a fickle creature, Richard.

See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.   - Eckhart Tolle

Ella’s prescription for contentment: Never allow yourself to complain about anything — not even the weather. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else. Never compare your lot with another’s. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise. Never dwell on tomorrow — remember that [tomorrow] is God’s, not ours.1

You'll likely hear some whiners complaining about the weather. That's what whiners do. They whine about stuff. They can't help it. Sad. -Coach

Worse still, Wally has hillbilly ADD.  He’ll start telling you about a snake he killed or some chesty woman he saw and then branch off into weather because a cloud caught his eye or complain about his itchy socks, wish he’d eaten more for lunch.

train me, nice as could be other than acting like she’s my mom, all honey-this and honey-that and “You think you can remember all that, sweetie?” Just three or four years out of high school herself. But she did have three kids, so probably she’d wiped so many asses she got stuck that way. I didn’t hold it against her. Coach Briggs’s brother stayed upstairs in the office. Heart attack guy was a mystery. First they said he might come back by the end of summer. Then they all stopped talking about him. As far as customers, every kind of person came in. Older guys would want to chew the fat outside in the dock after I loaded their grain bags or headgates or what have you. I handled all the larger items. They complained about the weather or tobacco prices, but oftentimes somebody would recognize me and want to talk football. What was my opinion on our being a passing versus running team, etc. So that was amazing. Being known. It was the voice that hit my ear like a bell, the day he came in. I knew it instantly. And that laugh. It always made you wish that whoever made him laugh like that, it had been you. I was stocking inventory in the home goods aisle, and moved around the end to where I could see across the store. Over by the medications and vaccines that were kept in a refrigerator case, he was standing with his back to me, but that wild head of hair was the giveaway. And the lit-up face of Donnamarie, flirting so hard her bangs were standing on end. She was opening a case for him. Some of the pricier items were kept under lock and key. I debated whether to go over, but heard him say he needed fifty pounds of Hi-Mag mineral and a hundred pounds of pelleted beef feed, so I knew I would see him outside. I signaled to Donnamarie that I’d heard, and threw it all on the dolly to wheel out to the loading dock. He pulled his truck around but didn’t really see me. Just leaned his elbow out the open window and handed me the register ticket. He’d kept the Lariat of course, because who wouldn’t. “You’ve still got the Fastmobile, I see,” I said. He froze in the middle of lighting a smoke, shifted his eyes at me, and shook his head fast, like a splash of cold water had hit him. “I’ll be goddamned. Diamond?” “The one,” I said. “How you been hanging, Fast Man?” “Cannot complain,” he said. But it seemed like he wasn’t a hundred percent on it really being me loading his pickup. He watched me in the side mirror. The truck bounced a little each time I hefted a mineral block or bag into the bed. Awesome leaf springs on that beauty. I came around to give him back his ticket, and he seemed more sure.

Complaining about the weather makes you more miserable and it spreads misery to others.

Ever notice how seldom children complain about the weather? They take hot weather in stride until the negative news corps educate them to be conscious of unpleasant temperatures. Make it a habit always to speak favorably about the weather regardless of what the weather actually is. Complaining about the weather makes you more miserable and it spreads misery to others.

When I get older, I’m going to watch The Weather Channel a lot. If someone mentions that it’s cold, or warm, or wet, I’ll be able to tell them that a low front is moving in from the west which will give me an opening to be able to complain about my knees. And the price of ointments and balms these days. And the government.

Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances. The best way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them. This act of faith frees you from resentment and frees Me to work My ways into the situation, so that good emerges from it. To

I’ve got a shift ye can use that I can trim the hem from, but we’ll have to wait on the men for a proper dress. Now, how shall we do your hair? Up, I think. With a crown of heather. Aye. Darcy likes heather.” With Fran on a mission, Melanie had no choice but to follow her and weather the bustling wind of her energy. She dressed Melanie in a long cotton slip and began twisting and piling her hair into a graceful up-do. Laird Steafan might not be known for his hospitality, but Melanie could find nothing to complain about when it came to the generosity of his cottars. In fact, Fran seemed positively delighted to have Melanie disturbing what would likely otherwise be a peaceful night with her husband and baby. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said to Fran, meeting her eyes in the small bronze mirror on the chest of drawers. “I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me.” “Nonsense,” Fran said, her smile dimpling her cheeks. “It’s not hospitality. We’re practically family.

I abandoned any regret. I’d chosen the storm. I wouldn’t complain about the weather.

HOW TO BECOME PART OF NATURE Pay your bills promptly Keep track of everything you spend Take taxis everywhere you go Avoid people you’re naturally attracted to Discuss the weather with strangers Make random phone calls at 2 a.m. Neither apologize nor forgive Avoid curiosity Always wear blue suits Never smile Tell long boring stories Yawn when people are talking to you Avoid sex whenever possible Complain loudly about unions Cultivate a British accent Make obscene gestures at nuns Never fart in public Rattle change in your pocket Flush newspapers down public toilets Lecture people about smoking Collect pornography Be the first to pass out at parties Debunk current fads Keep your eyes unfocussed This is all you need to know. Within three years of following these rules carefully you will be part of nature. —

When we grumble about the weather, we are arguing against God’s ordering of creation. When we complain about illness or job loss or whatever it may be, we are declaring, whether we realize it or not, that God isn’t handling our affairs very well. Complaining is actually a form of pride, which makes sense when we recognize its rebellious undertones.

But when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God who sent us our weather.

Dear God: Thank you for the gift of life. Signed: Conroy Conroy: What gift? You know there's no such thing as a free lunch. You're paying for life every day. Pain, depression, bad weather, disappointments, sorrow, the blahs, and every day you're getting older. What do you call all of that, fringe benefits? I figured that if I just gave you life, you wouldn't appreciate it. Not that my charging you did much good. Most of you don't appreciate life anyway. You're too busy complaining about the price. Signed: God TWENTY-FOUR "She'll be ready in a minute," said Leonard as he sat down sideways, looping his legs over the arm of an aging, overstuffed chair in the Cohen living room. As I sat down on the couch, I could hear the sounds of the early Sunday morning crowd drifting through the door and up the few stairs that separated the Cohen Food Store from the living room. The few times I had been in Leonard's house, I always felt as if I were sitting backstage at a neighborhood play. Mrs. Cohen came out of the bathroom, readjusting the apron that came up to her armpits. "Good morning, Timmy," she said, smiling as she walked across the living room. "Good morning, Mrs. Cohen." She stopped and stared furiously at Leonard. "Sit in that chair the right way." Leonard obediently swung his feet around and

They’re all the same. I wish I could meet a man who heard what I mean rather than what I say. Who’d understand that when I complain about the weather I’m not really talking about the weather. That when I complain about my job I mean that I need a man to comfort and support me. Do I have to come out and say that I’m fed up with my life? Why couldn’t he realize that I only talked about the rain because I couldn’t say I wished he were with me? If I have to ask him to hug me it defeats the purpose.

I mean, it wasn't like she had died. Then, people might care. I always reminded myself that there were many people who had it far worse than me, so I had no right to complain about my problems. Besides, nobody liked a Debbie Downer.

She could imagine the demise of the fowl of the air, fish in the sea, mankind itself, but not that the only man she had ever loved would no longer love her. She complained about the weather, she complained about all sorts of things that ordinarily she would not have noticed; she criticized my behavior, and then she criticized herself for criticizing me.

Craig is one of them: works in the city, in finance, goes to the pub every evening after work and on holiday once a year, has Netflix subscriptions, is never late paying his bills, gets his annual health check-up done on time, complains about Brexit, the changeable weather and how he doesn’t work out enough, and jokes that train delays make us, Britain, no better than a third world country.

We count negative things when we talk about the things we don’t have. We count negative things when we criticize or find fault with other people, when we complain about traffic, waiting in lines, delays, the government, not enough money, or the weather. When we count negative things they increase too, but on top of that, with every negative thing we count, we cancel out blessings that were on their way.

The financial decline of farming towns has become an accepted fact of American life, and the economic plight of farmers (who seem to complain incessantly about their low prices, high debt, and the ever-present threat of bad weather) is now considered a kind of inescapable destiny. The American farm and the small towns it once supported, the thinking goes, have died over the last fifty years because there’s no money to be made in a largely backward-looking business. This would be a sad thing, if it was in any way true, but it is not. Farming is immensely profitable. The agriculture sector is one of the richest, most productive moneymaking machines in American life. After all, a lot of the business simply involves sitting around and letting plants grow and letting animals get fat. Mother Nature does the heavy lifting. Then the farmer harvests the plants, kills the animals, and watches the money roll in. In 2010 alone Tyson Foods sold $28.43 billion worth of meat and cleared $780 million in pure profit. And that was during a tough year, when consumers were dining out less and scrimping on steaks and the precooked meals that are Tyson’s real moneymakers. Other agriculture companies did just as well. The critical question isn’t whether there is money in agriculture, but rather where the money goes.

Summer finally came, all at once. Grass turned green, flowers burst into bloom, birds were everywhere, and temperatures zoomed up into the eighties, as though the weather wanted to catch people unawares and make them complain about the heat.

For seven months each year, the subarctic environment is transformed by a gift (or perhaps some would say a curse) of the weather. This, of course, is snow. By midwinter the land is covered by soft powder lying two to six feet deep in the forest, hardened to dunelike drifts on the broad lakes and rivers, creating a nivean world of its own. The coming of snow is forecast by many signs… When the sky is bright orange at sunrise there will be snow, "usually two mornings later." Perhaps the best sign of snow is a moondog, a luminous circle around a bright winter moon. When the Koyukon speak of it, they say, "the moon pulls his (parka] ruff around his face," as if he is telling them that snow is coming soon. The Koyukon people regard snow as an elemental part of their world, much like the river, the air, or the sun. It can be a great inconvenience at times, but mostly it is a benefit. Without snow, the ease and freedom of winter travel would be lost, the movements of animals would not be faithfully recorded, the winter darkness would be far deeper, and the quintessential beauty of the world would be lessened. I never heard Koyukon people complain about snow, even when it stubbornly refused to melt away in late spring.

What most of these commentators fail to recognize, in any case, is that English people enjoy complaining about things, and that the content of any particular English person's complaint is rarely anything more than a pretext for the act of complaining. From Mr. Woodhouse to Basil Fawlty, complaining about things - the weather, the food, the trains - is what the English have always done best, and with the greatest eloquence and esprit.

reframing Try to see the silver lining. For instance, instead of complaining about the rainy weather, see the rain as a positive part of growth and renewal for the plants and flowers that will spring up as a result. Or, if you have to work late, be thankful for your job and for the ability to make money and support yourself, or yourself and your family. Find ways to take the seemingly bad and see the good in it instead.

When you are with certain people, do you invariably feel like “less?” Do you spend all of your energy worrying about pleasing someone else? Is his or her happiness more important than yours? Are their shifting moods a constant concern to you, because you never know when to expect a storm? It may seem that when you spend time together, you need to work hard to keep them upbeat and happy, as if it were your responsibility. It can seem like a constant struggle, with you never certain just where you’re going to end up. A toxic relationship has lots of negativity. Nothing is ever right. It can be you, your family, your job, your friends, the weather, the food, the news – anything. There’s always something wrong; something to complain about. In a toxic relationship, you can’t ever do anything right. If you get a promotion, you’ll be accused of seeing work as too important. If you don’t get promoted, you’ll be accused of not being competent enough. If you buy a new outfit, you’re a spendthrift. If you wear something old, you’re frumpy. The truth is, you’re caught in a vicious circle where you can no longer win. Toxic relationships can become familiar and almost comfortable, if that is what we are used to. It may become difficult or impossible for you to acknowledge a positive relationship because it lacks the drama that you are used

What’s so scary is that mob rule has displaced due process. The faceless masses are America’s new arbiters of justice. I’m so fearful of the court of public opinion that I’ve stopped saying anything of value online, stopped unpacking what’s important in my life, stopped trying to forge any kind of understanding over social media. I mostly post shots of my pets and complain about the weather. It’s edgy stuff.

It’s like Mark Twain said, everybody complains about the weather, but no one ever does a damn thing about it.

when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God

. . . Or maybe because of the seizures he’d had since he was a kit. He knew his parents still worried about him, even though it had been a while since his last upsetting vision. They’re probably hoping that with some training from the other medicine cats, I’ll learn to control my visions once and for all . . . and I can be normal. Shadowpaw wanted that, too. “The snow must be really deep up on the moors,” Dovewing mewed. “Make sure you watch where you’re putting your paws.” Shadowpaw wriggled his shoulders, praying that none of his Clanmates were listening. “I will,” he promised, glancing toward the medicine cats’ den in the hope of seeing his mentor, Puddleshine, emerge. But there was no sign of him yet. To his relief, Tiger star gave Dovewing a nudge and they both moved off toward the Clan leader’s den. Shadowpaw rubbed one paw hastily across his face and bounded across the camp to see what was keeping Puddleshine. Intent on finding his mentor, Shadowpaw barely noticed the patrol trekking toward the fresh-kill pile, prey dangling from their jaws. He skidded to a halt just in time to avoid colliding with Cloverfoot, the Clan deputy. “Shadowpaw!” she exclaimed around the shrew she was carrying. “You nearly knocked me off my paws.” “Sorry, Cloverfoot,” Shadowpaw meowed, dipping his head respectfully. Cloverfoot let out a snort, half annoyed, half amused. “Apprentices!” Shadowpaw tried to hide his irritation. He was an apprentice, yes, but an old one—medicine cat apprentices’ training lasted longer than warriors’. His littermates were full warriors already. But he knew his parents would want him to respect the deputy. Cloverfoot padded on, followed by Strikestone, Yarrowleaf, and Blazefire. Though they were all carrying prey, they had only one or two pieces each, and what little they had managed to catch was undersized and scrawny. “I can’t remember a leaf-bare as cold as this,” Yarrowleaf complained as she dropped a blackbird on the fresh-kill pile. Strikestone nodded, shivering as he fluffed out his brown tabby pelt. “No wonder there’s no prey. They’re all hiding down their holes, and I can’t blame them.” As Shadowpaw moved on, out of earshot, he couldn’t help noticing how pitifully small the fresh-kill pile was, and he tried to ignore his own growling belly. He could hardly remember his first leaf-bare, when he’d been a tiny kit, so he didn’t know if the older cats were right and the weather was unusually cold. I only know I don’t like it, he grumbled to himself as he picked his way through the icy slush that covered the ground of the camp. My paws are so cold I think they’ll drop off. I can’t wait for newleaf!

She will leave me. It’s six AM. Breakfast for one. Eggs, sunny-side-up, like the morning outside; two-cheese English muffin, melting in the toaster oven; already humid outside; coffee will be a little bitter today, no matter how much sweetener gets put in it. The OJ will stay in the fridge – my stomach can do without the citric acid bombardment this morning. She will pack her things and leave me. Coffee brews. Radio station plays then breaks from classical music, telling me what's already evident about the weather. She will complain that she cannot get along with me. Eggs pop and sizzle as the news comes on.

Shit load is actually kind of a technical term. A shit load is a load made up of random stuff, a bunch of different shit. Drivers complain about getting shit loads because they are more complicated to tie down. More important, because the weight of a shit load is harder to distribute, they are dangerous to transport. When a trailer is weighted unevenly, things can get squirrelly. As a new swamper, I learn to hate loading and off-loading the shit loads because the rigging is complicated. Unloading a regular load, a large square box, for instance, it is pretty easy in a glance to know how to get it off a trailer. But a shit load is like a difficult math problem if it were greasy with invert, dust, dirt, and diesel and worn by time and weather. And if it were heavy enough to kill you.