What Am I Complaining About?

Click to View Large

I ask myself that question a lot of times as I sit and eat my turkey sandwich while overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.  Millions of people make vacation plans and spend a lot of money to come and see the bridge, one of the most iconic architectural monuments in the U.S.  I come here to eat my fritos when I'm bored.

It's easy to find things to complain about in our jobs.  I do it every day to the point of ridiculousness.  A sales job can be a lonely existence and it certainly has some drawbacks, but my sales territory includes Marin County up to the bridge.  Hell, I was literally required to be there as we had a big erosion control project going on in the steep sloped hills for the past year.   I have taken great shots of the bridge from the driver's seat, while dialing in sports radio.  It's a fact of life,  I just see it all the time.

From the bridge I can be at the beach in 10 minutes to watch the surfers do their thing while I finish up my sandwich.  I do it often, it helps break up the day and it only takes 30 minutes.    Many times I try to tell myself how lucky I am to have the job I have in the area I have it.  It works for awhile, but I think the American suburbanite is programmed to complain.  Relatively speaking, (especially when compared to, say, a child struggling in Africa) everything is easy.   The fight for survival is so much less than it was 100 or 200 years ago.  Imagine the pioneers and the Westward migration.  That, my friends, was a struggle.

So I sit and watch the surfers and I think about how easy I have it and I begin to feel a sense of tranquility, and I vow to stop complaining about ridiculous things.  Inevitably my reverie is broken by the sound of my phone, the 3"x5" miracle that allows me to communicate instantaneously with nearly any part of the world, and I reach down to grab it and it falls between the space in the seat where I can't reach it.

SON OF A B*%*@!!!  Everything is a pain in the ass!!