Complaining is not only easy, it sets up more suffering
Like a fair number paper pushing folks, I like to complain about my workload. Sometimes I think it's a paperwork-size game: who has the most paperwork, who is bearing the largest burden. Other times I see the paperwork complaint as a form of bonding: we're in this suffering together, so let's compare how much pain we've endured. Sadly, though, it's easy to slide from the bonding complaint into the comparison complaint. More destructively, though, is the self-pity complaint.
I suspect the self-pity complaint exists invisibly next to and with every other form of complaint. Similar to quantum particles that can simultaneously exist in multiple locations, the self-pitying complaint exists in potentiality right next to the standard complaint. With an unhealthy or slight shift in thinking, the complaint instantly flashes from standard into self-pitying. Let the self-guilt-tripping with simultaneous holier-than-thou-moralizing commence!
Self-pity can be fun. Sure, I'll give you that. Everyone loves a good wallow--I know I do--but wallowing means that work does not get done. Work not getting done means that more work is stacking up. Thus, the more immediate indulgence I take in self-pity and wallowing, the larger the pile of paperwork becomes and the more valid my assertion that I am suffering becomes. Well, at least it feels that way. But there's something icky about self-pity. It feels like when I shoplifted candy when I was six or seven. I totally knew it was wrong. At that age I did not know what feeling like shit was--I didn't know the word--but upon reflection, that is how I felt. Self-pity resonates with that same feeling.