Fear less, hope more; Eat less,
chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all
good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb
Thirty-something years ago I sat
around the dining-room table with my in-laws as we all learned a new set of
rules for the game of Uno. We’d been playing the game together for years, but
my sister-in-law Barb, who was the newest member of the family, had a few extra
rules that her family played by. The first hand progressed until someone got
stung by “Barb’s Rules.” After listening patiently to the comments, Barb calmly
explained, “Did I forget to tell you rule number one? ‘No whining’.”
It’s been the number one rule in our
extended family ever since and it’s the number one rule of traveling happy. You came here looking for secrets to help you suffer the fools who get in the way of your travel
pleasure. Telling you to stop whining is kind of like saying, “Be the happy
traveler by being the happy traveler.” Well, that is what I am saying. You
could be getting in the way of your own traveling pleasure, and don’t even know
it. In order to be a happy traveler you first have to have the mindset of one.
You have to decide that you are going to be that person. You have to decide
that you are going to have a good time from the moment you leave home until the
moment you put the suitcase back in the hall closet.
Whining gets in the way of everything
pleasurable. Whining irritates other people and causes them to whine, thereby
irritating you further. Whining is habitual. Half the time when we’re whining
we don’t even know we’re doing it because we’ve been doing it so frequently and
for so long. And if you think that you can’t travel with your kids because the
whining would drive you crazy, then you might first want to stop infecting them
with the whining bug. Learn how to stop your own whining, then teach them how
to do the same.
Unlearn
the Habit
The first step in unlearning the
whining habit is learning to distinguish statements that contain information
that is useful, necessary, or in some way uplifting from statements that lack
purpose other than venting some sort of discomfort on your part. Use the letters
“UNU” as a memory aide to help. Ask yourself, “Useful? Necessary? Uplifting?”
before words leave your lips. Almost everything else is whining.
Think about the effect your words
might have on anyone who hears them. Will others have new knowledge that they
needed after you speak? Will they feel better after hearing what you have to
say? It’s doubtful that you really intend to spoil someone’s day when you
whine, but that can be the unintended consequence and the sad thing is that
that spoiled day usually comes right back around to you.
Timing plays a big part in
distinguishing between UNU statements and whining. Consider the statement,
“It’s freezing and wet!” Saying it to a travel companion as you prepare to head
out the door for a walk in the park is useful. Saying it after you are both
standing in the cold rain is whining. Voicing a potentially valid complaint at
the wrong time can put a damper on everyone’s moment, including your own.
Picture this scenario: a pair of
newlyweds arrives in their hotel suite. At first glance everything seems
perfect—rose petals scattered across a plush bed, champagne chilling in an ice
bucket, soft lighting throughout the room. Someone has gone to a great deal of
trouble to make the moment of arrival special. Just as the groom moves in for a
romantic kiss his new wife notices that their view of the ocean is partially
blocked by an adjacent building and starts on a tirade about false advertising
and the ineptitude of the travel agent, then heads toward the phone to call the
front desk to get a better room. Big moment killer.
Does this mean that the bride
shouldn’t voice her concerns to either the travel agent or the hotel? Of course
not, but there’s a big difference between whining about something and taking
the appropriate action at the appropriate time when something is not as it
should be.
We are always astonished when guests
tell us about something that was wrong with their accommodations at our resort
as they check out, or worse, in the online review they post once they get home.
If your air conditioner isn’t working and it’s well over a hundred degrees
outside, then letting management know about it falls under the heading of
necessary information, not whining, assuming of course, that you handle it
correctly.
Learn
to seek assistance without whining.
1.
Use positive language. Temper your concerns by using
phrases like “I think…,” or “It seems…”
2.
Never place blame. You’ve gotten yourself lost, so
don’t call up and attack a hotel clerk by saying something like, “Your website
has the wrong directions!” You’ve put them on the defensive from the beginning
and unless they have exceptional patience you will likely receive defensive
service once you finally do arrive.
3.
Start the conversation with a
compliment if possible.
“We love our room, but it seems that the air conditioner may not be working
properly.”
4.
Ask for what you really want. When our daughter was little she
would often whine, “I’m hungry.” I stopped it by asking her what she thought
she would get if she walked into McDonalds and made that statement. If what you
want is a couple of extra towels, then simply ask for them. Telling
housekeeping that there aren’t enough towels in your room is whining and
complaining online about the lack of towels after you leave is unproductive.
5.
Speak to the correct person. This is sometimes a challenge, but
at least try to start in the right place. Complaining about your air
conditioning to the cook who is on a smoke break outside the restaurant back
door is a waste of everyone’s time. You could, however, ask the cook to point
you in the right direction for maintenance help.
6.
Pay attention to timing. Remember the honeymooners. Don’t go
barging into a crowd of people at the registration desk whining about your
partially blocked view; it won’t get you as much assistance as a discreet
conversation. And neither will posting a bad review online without ever having
asked for a better room—that kind of whining usually gets you nothing, trust
me.
7.
Don’t blow things out of proportion. We once had a guest that went on a
rant that included everything from her cabin door sticking slightly to a light
bulb being burned out, finally ending with her anger over the fact that the
sleeper sofa was unusable. That was probably because it wasn’t a sleeper sofa.
The ultimate non-whine, is simply to
ask a question. Just be careful to watch your tone of voice to make this to
work properly. You’ve got to seem sincere and actually interested in the answer
to your question. “Is there a trick to getting the hot water to come on in the
shower?” makes you a seeker of assistance rather than a complainer. It humbles
you, and humble people in need of help almost always get what they want.
So there it is. The number one secret of happy
travelers, like it or not, is that they don’t whine. They may, on occasion,
complain, but they do so at the appropriate time, in a tone that takes other
people’s feelings into consideration, and with the goal of simply correcting
something that is amiss in an effort to improve their own journey.
Most importantly, they do not spread the germ
of the unhappy traveler, for in the words of Thomas Fuller, “If an ass goes
traveling, he will not come home a horse.” Leave the ass at home and see if you
aren’t a much happier traveler.
• Step 1 is to secure the premises so that you feel safe.
