Do a Grouch a Favor Day

What the day is

Do a Grouch a Favor Day is observed on February 16. The instruction is straightforward; what sits behind chronic bad temper is the more useful subject.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented.

Sustained irritability is frequently a symptom rather than a personality. Chronic pain is the most obvious cause, and it is exhausting in a way that reliably shortens tempers. Hearing loss is the most underestimated: someone who has been straining to follow conversation for years withdraws, mishears, answers wrongly and is read as rude or difficult, and the exhaustion of constant effort produces exactly the demeanor people label grumpy. It is common, gradual enough to go unnoticed by the person experiencing it, and eminently treatable.

Depression is another. In older adults and in men particularly, it often presents as irritability rather than visible sadness, which means it gets treated as character. Loneliness compounds all of it, and people who have become unpleasant to be around tend to receive less contact, which makes things worse in a loop.

There is also a counterintuitive finding about how to approach somebody difficult. The Ben Franklin effect describes the observation, which Franklin recorded about a political opponent and which experiments have broadly supported, that asking a person for a small favor makes them like you more, apparently because they reconcile having helped you with a belief that you were worth helping. Doing someone a favor can read as pity. Asking one treats them as capable, which for an isolated or diminished person may be the more valuable gesture.

How to take part

• Ask the grouch for a small favor or for advice rather than offering charity.
• Consider whether hearing is the issue, and raise it gently if it might be.
• Face people when speaking and do not shout, which does not help hearing loss.
• Keep inviting someone who has become hard work. Withdrawal is the trap.
• Treat persistent irritability in someone you love as worth a doctor's visit.