Winners practise nuances of contentment with noticeable endurance. Whiners find contentment with their inalienable tendency to moan, groan, haw and hem over everything with unbridled petulance.
Winners effortlessly convert every unfortunate event into an opportunity to find solutions and remedies. It has been said that the feeble soul merely whines and complains.
Whiners can fool you into believing that they are aiming for perfection while not acknowledging their own imperfections.
Mark Twain was referring to born-again winners when he observed that “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” On the other side of the river stand the whiners worrying endlessly like paying a debt they don’t owe.
The political arena is full of whiners feigning a winner’s attitude. They flash smiles to waiting press photographers after a criminal indictment, and the media publishes these pictures!
Politics is the only blurry and murky discipline where losers and whiners find a sense of proportion and stability. It helps them get worse, but with bulging bank accounts courtesy of ill-gotten gains.
Whether whiners can become winners depends entirely on their ability and capability to change their thinking. A very few succeed since they whine for all the right reasons and purposes.
The Malaysian education system is a constant whine where every known expert, with noble intentions, condemns and curses the status quo. But nary a workable reform. The recurring nightmare never quits. How do you stop a nightmare? Quit sleeping?
The voting system is also in the doldrums. No amount of whining can change this deep state controlled maniacal mechanism come Bersih or highwater. The only reform that makes sense is zero voter turnout.
What exactly do ministers do without the civil service? Every piece of legislation earmarks and underscores a minister’s power and authority for his or her discretion. Is that winning?
Whiners in politics find a safe and secure haven for mediocrity. Meritocracy is the heaven for winners. Winners soar with eagles while whiners bore like clucking turkeys. You can’t miss them.
We had a two-timing two-time prime minister who never really had a winning streak but a mean whining trait. He wore it on his sleeve. He condemned everyone. Lately, he is shooting himself in his foot and mouth. It could be mad cow disease.
Some Malaysian social clubs are a veritable sanctuary for winners and whiners camouflaged as egotists, egoists and egomaniacs. These maniacs thrive on nothing but their deep-rooted fear of being ignored, unquoted or un-consulted.
The Societies Act 1966 accommodates many undesirable clauses that encourages undesirables and whiners to gain popularity with an acute sense and awareness of social clubs’ vote banks.
Our laws are not designed and structured to discourage the whiners and troublemakers who form groups as an insatiable wrecking crew to destabilise peace, harmony and prosperity.
If only elected leaders exhibit winning attitudes and habits. Unfortunately, the winners and achievers are never entrusted with leadership roles.
How then can we as a people motivate our leaders since they hardly ever motivate us? We, who see the trees for the forest, whine through media columns to vent our frustration instead of frustrating the whining leaders in government.
We hear politicians aided by their hand-picked experts whining about inflation, unemployment, poverty and the shrinking ringgit. The day is done and dusted if they are quoted in some media outlet.
Whiners dwell on problems. Winners find remedies and solutions. When and if whiners become winners, we will be surrounded by real achievers who will bless political maturity and economic prosperity.
Some whiners become winners because they are activists to the core. They are not pacifists. You can see them in the global arena where fighting wars for lasting peace has been compared to indulging in sex to preserve virginity.
They don’t see the pink elephant in the room; all they see are two fleas doing a tango on the elephant’s eyelid.
The rakyat are dutifully obliged to cast a Nelson’s eye. Too much talk and truth-telling will bring you to the threshold of the Sedition Act. And them some SOSMA.
In America, the President delivers his State of the Union Address once every four-year term. The drama of whining sounding like a winning bout of self-gratification is a classic. Even Hollywood’s screenwriters can’t hold a candle to the presidential speech-writers.
Mark Twain always saw a funny side to politics and politicians as did H. L. Mencken. They knew that social ills, for instance, cannot be cured by those in charge. But their trial-and-error efforts brought great comic relief.
Donald Trump has an enviable way to side-step silliness. He simply calls them “fake news”, and that shuts them up for good. Trump has mastered the art of whining and winning as the ultimate deal maker.
But the real winners, it seems, are those, while whining, have squandered the public trust and the money that backs it. This 24-carat injustice is alarming because the rakyat doesn’t fight back.
We have every ingredient to make this a nation of winners if the rakyat can say ‘no’ to whiners who think they qualify for leadership roles. A public debate with a seasoned moderator will reveal indisputable, unadulterated and unerring public opinion.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
