The Power of Rant

So I've had lots of friends talk about endurance, patients, tolerance, acceptance. And I've heard talks at church about enduring to the end. Now I do agree with this. I do believe that it's important to bare our trials with patients. However, I also believe that when we're at that breaking point, when we're completely fed up, we have to have humor about our trials as well. How do we do that? How do we laugh at our problems, when we're in the middle of them? A good rant.

I believe in the power of rant, and I use it. When I'm just so frustrated that I can't take it any more and I'm at my breaking point, I call a good friend, and I rant. This rant will last five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and usually ends with both of us laughing at the problem in question regardless of what it is. That's when I can stoically pick myself up and carry on with the processes of "enduring to the end".

What is a rant? It's just getting stuff off your chest. It's getting to the point where you can start a fresh. Frustration builds up like steam in a pot of boiling water, eventually it has to come out. Once the steam clears out some, then you can see the humor in the situation.

Brief example of a rant:

So when I lived in Florida with roommates, we went out west for a wedding. The reception was in Idaho, we left at like ten pm. It was May. May to me means the beginning of summer, good time to go to the beach. Yeah, we drove through a blizzard for TWELVE HOURS. Then we had to walk through the snow to get to the bathroom at the rest stop. We were all wearing FLIP FLOPS. Yeah. Then in Kansas, we had car problems, and ended up walking through a Super Walmart for SEVEN HOURS. Did I mention that we had to be home by Monday? First day of the Summer semester (yeah, that's right, SUMMER, not the time for blizzards) plus we all had to be at work on Monday. So we're in Walmart, and one of my roommates buys some strawberries and offered me one. It was moldy. It was just that kind of day. So finally we're on the road again, and everything going fine until Alabama. In Alabama two of my roommates got into a huge screaming match in the middle of the parking lot, and we all were tempting to just get out of the car and let the owner drive home by herself. Then we got back in the car, and drove the last five hours in dead silence, no talking, no radio. The worst road trip ever. When we finally did get home, everyone scattered and I locked myself into the bathroom for a three hour bath.

After having a good rant about this experience, it became one of the funny stories I like to share. Faiyaz is sick of hearing me tell it.

The theraputic power of rant is not reserved for bad experiences that are over, it's also good for problems that are ongoing. I've ranting about potty training, house training the dog, problems with the cat, moving problems, money problems, school problems, disagreements with Fai, problems with my mom, etc. All you need is a good friend who's willing to listen, and a few minutes. Let it all out, find the humor, keep in mind that almost all problems are temporary, and "this too shall pass".

You can even rant about things that annoy you, like political issues or humidity or the cold. Just a couple of minutes to get the frustration out and laugh at what's bothering you.

So there's my rant on ranting.