this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Hi, I'm 21/male from Germany and to me it seems like people here are constantly negative and complaining compared to people from other/non-Western countries who seem way more chill.

I assume this is probably the worst here in Germany since this is also a stereotype about Germans that they constantly complain about things and in my opinion this is very true from experiencing real life here every day. But I would say I've also noticed this from other western countries, maybe not as extreme but for example in America people also seem to be pretty hateful and seem to make a drama out of everything (at least from what I can tell on the internet).

I just wonder why these people unnecessarily spread this negativity because in my opinion here in these western 1st world countries we have so much luxury compared to other places. For example other countries have wars, people live in terror and extreme injustice/corruption, people starve to death, get abused, raped and tortured and need to seek refuge in other countries. But we complain that eggs are too expensive and that we have too many migrants, which goes so far that America is deporting all illegal migrants including those who might've fled from the things mentioned earlier such as violence and rape.

Why do people waste all this time with complaining and being negative if they could use this time to be grateful, enjoy life and make the world a better place? To me this seems like people are destroying their own life and make it unnecessarily harder/unhappy with that behavior. I think I'm noticing this particularly in older people including my parents. It almost feels like they're unable to be positive and only know how to complain.

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[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Maybe you're not conscious of it but there is an element of:

->

It also feels like you are passive-aggressively telling everyone to just stop bitching about things you think they have no right to bitch about. You're gate-keeping complaining, basically.

"grocery prices" ... fuck, my friend, not long ago I used to be able to feed my family on $600/mo and now I'm hovering around $1k. That's a car payment. I get it, my son, who is 26 and lives by himself, can feed himself for $100/week because he can choose the stuff that is important to him and if he chooses to eat beans and rice for a week to save money he can. Meanwhile there are 4 of us living in this home, and my autistic daughter has food issues, which means I can't just say, "Oh the good spaghetti sauce has gone up to $8 per jar, time to buy Prego which tastes like ass but sauces your pasta."

You can't know the pain points in other peoples' lives. I shouldn't have to go around explaining to everyone about my autistic daughter to justify why I might complain about grocery prices, you know?

Before you get defensive about it, as is some folks' ways, please understand I know you probably aren't aware you are doing it. You're young and you have experienced just a small slice of life. Hell, youth be damned, some folks go through their whole lives that way.

The way to deal with it isn't to complain about it. It isn't to judge it. It's just to accept it, don't engage, and move on. Maybe redirect the conversation if that's appropriate. You aren't asking a stupid question, you are asking a judgmental question, and you should look inward and try to stop that.

Good luck, mate. Hope this helps in some way.