Problems for the sake of problems.

Pettiness is something that everyone will sadly have to deal with. All of the time. Let me first educate you on what I mean by pettiness. The kind of person who is petty creates minor problems when there are none. They simply strive to cause trouble in small amounts when it isn’t necessary. Disagreements, preferences, and gripes are the main artillery of a petty person. They use these to accomplish a common goal: to make them feel good – that they have some degree of power. They create problems to show others that they have a certain degree of control. Why? Who knows?

I will first focus on the ways that people attempt to be petty. The first is the disagreement. A person that I met some time ago (not too long) seems to disagree with everything that anyone says. Seriously, everything. Her opinion is correct, no matter what. This wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t vocal about it. But whenever a person states his opinion on anything, she will disagree and tell him that not only does she disagree, but that he is wrong. I can’t read her mind, but my guess is that some of the topics she does not care or even know about. Yet, she wants to create little problems by disagreeing, even if she agrees with the person’s opinion. Why? Once again, I cannot read minds, but I would speculate that it is because she wants to appear knowledgeable on a variety of topics i.e. that she has some sort of control. It would be fine if she actually knew about half of the stuff she argued about. But because she is trying so hard to appear intelligent, I think that most will simply find her annoying. Maybe if she expressed her opinion on things that she actually knew about, I wouldn’t think of her as annoying. If I am participating in an argument, and I don’t know about something, I don’t say anything about it in an attempt to appear intelligent. I know that most people will see right through it.

The second tool for conflict is the preference. I will attempt to make this as clear as possible with an example: Pepsi or Coke? I think that most people do not care which is offered. I can barely taste the difference. Maybe some have a vague preference, but that is fine. The trouble is when people refuse to drink one of the colas. You are allowed to like one of them more than the other, but I seriously doubt that you cannot stand the other one. This example is meant to show that petty people have preferences like the above in order to create more problems. I’m sure that most people really don’t care which drink they drink. So why get so angry about it? I will bet that if no one were watching, a petty person would just use whatever they are supposed to “hate.” They don’t really hate it; they just want to cause problems. I use the soft drink example because I have seen it in action. The person uses this preference to let the person behind the counter know that he is the all-knowing customer – he is in control. And he knows that he likes one drink better than the other, and he can’t drink the wrong drink. I’m sure he will live if he can’t have what he wants.

Finally, the successful petty person will gripe whenever possible. Whenever something isn’t quite perfect, he will be sure to let you know. The tiniest defect or imperfection is simply unacceptable. Here is a test: give the person whatever he wants, but do not inform him of anything wrong with it, however minute. I’m sure he will be fine with it. Then point out the fault. The person will instantly reject whatever it is. Why does the person think they must have everything perfect? If he saw another receive a “defective” product, he wouldn’t say anything at all. I guess it’s okay for someone else to receive something with a minor defect. But the person is too good to have anything but the best. Why? For the last time, the person wants to feel powerful. When the person has the power to force everyone else to give him only the best, he feels powerful. If something isn’t perfect, he is being taken advantage of, and that is unacceptable. He feels weak if forced to have something that is sub-par a.k.a. not quite perfect. He doesn’t even realize that everyone else is fine with it. All he knows is that he is worth more than that, and that he is going to make someone feel bad about it. This truly makes me sick. It makes me wonder how people can be so selfish.

Here is how to NOT be petty. Whenever you realize that you can say something to cause a problem, DON’T. Who cares? Why do you need to do that? You don’t. Why create problems when you don’t need to? I don’t care if it makes you feel good. Find some other way. Play a video game. Video games can solve almost anything. I don’t care. Just don’t bring others down for the sake of conflict.

[ Greg_Hendricks_2004 ]