Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Teacher:
Resentment and complaint are pretty useless. Resentment goes
back to feelings in that you are angry over being treated unfairly. Life
is not fair, and thinking that you will always be treated fairly is simply
a delusion. Most people are going to be nice to you when they think
you are useful to them, and they will set you aside once they feel
that you will be of no further use. You can be resentful about this or
you can press ahead. One of these choices is a passive,
nonproductive state, and the other is an active and productive state.
The choice is yours.
The treatment that upsets you may have been from an individual,
such as in the case of a romance turned sour, or it could be
professional, like when a coworker is found to be a backstabber, or a

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boss promotes someone other than you. It can also be societal,
where a group of people who feel that their socioeconomic group
has been ignored or taken advantage of. Sitting around being angry
is going to solve nothing. Going out and beating the offender with a
bat will only serve to get you sent to prison as well as confirm in the
other person’s mind what they felt about you beforehand.
Right or wrong, being treated unfairly is another fact of life that must
be handled appropriately. And resentment is simply not going to
solve a thing.
The better action would be to open a dialogue with the person or
people that you feel insulted by, and try to find out (A) if your
suspicions are well founded and (B) what is the best way for you and
them to move forward in some kind of cooperative way. People
generally are not good at sitting and talking to each other anymore,
but only because we do not do it often enough to be well practiced at
it. Everyone has to start where they are, so this is sound advice.
Next we come to complaint. Complaint is really an act of self-pity. It
is a person whining about what they do not like. My Father never
wanted to hear us complain about anything. He was okay with us
telling him about a problem, provided we had the start of a solution
to follow up with our initial issue. I have tried my best to live this way.
I have had many coworkers refer to me as an idea person, because I
don’t look for problems, I identify problems and then set about
looking for a solution. Or at least a bandage until someone smarter
arrives with a suitable resolution...
This precept is great advice, particularly in our modern time when
people are so quick to resent anyone and complain about anything.
If this were taught in schools, there would be a slow but steady
change in direction for society, one that could benefit us all.