Stop Complaining

There’s no such thing as a perfect life.  It’s filled with obstacles, start to finish.  From the time we are born, utterly helpless and dependent, to the time we die, however that death may come.  In between, we face challenges that span the mundane, the unique, and the tragic.

Life is hard.  It just is.  What separates success from failure is how we deal with difficulties. 

Success means working hard, training, learning, improving, figuring out what challenges you are up against and how you’re going to get around them.  Complaining means blaming someone else for your problems, and then sitting smugly back as though you’ve done your part.  If complaining is your coping mechanism, you’re bound to fail.

Everyone complains, it’s human nature.  But what does it accomplish? 

I’m not talking about sticking up for yourself, pointing out a wrong that needs to be righted, or asking for help.  It’s not complaining if you’re working toward a solution on which you intend to take action.  True complaining is absolving yourself of responsibility and having zero intention of finding answers to your problems. 

Complaining is lazy.  It’s a way to sound like you care, and maybe you do.  Just not enough to make any changes.  But maybe you’re the one who needs to change.  It might not be the system, the company, the traffic cop, or the cashier.  It could be that you’re lazy, or obstinate, or you actually were speeding, or those apples weren’t on sale. 

• Complaining makes you sound like a victim.  Is that who you want to be?
• Complaining makes a bad situation seem worse.  Did you mean to compound the problem?
• Complaining makes you feel like you can’t get anything done.  Is that the result you want?
• Complaining makes other people avoid you.  Does being an annoying downer sound attractive?
• Complaining is contagious.  Do you want your environment to be emotionally toxic?
• Complaining is bad karma.  What do you expect to get when all you give is negativity?
• Complaining stresses you out.  It releases cortisol, which makes you fat, shrinks the hippocampus (a contributor to Alzheimer’s), impairs your immune system and increases vulnerability to heart disease.

That’s right, complaining is literally bad for your health.

Since complaining doesn’t work, what does?  Curiosity and action.  Instead of asking “What the hell,” try thinking “I wonder why.”  Ask questions, get the information, and then stop and think about what you can do about it.  Sometimes the answer will be “nothing,” in which case you have to figure out a way to live with the problem.  Other times, the answer will be very difficult, in which case you have to make a decision as to whether or not you can accomplish it and if the effort is worth it.  Often, though, the answer is quite simple, as long as you are ready and willing to make a change.

So try this:  Don’t complain for one whole day.  Start to finish, 24 hours of a complaint free existence.  Try looking at every bump in the road as a puzzle to be solved rather than a roadblock.  For this experiment to succeed, you also need to add gratitude to your mindset:  focus on at least one thing in your life for which you can be grateful.  You’ll still get frustrated, annoyed, and irritated, you’ll just handle problems better.  But at the end of that day, you’ll actually be more productive, more positive, and more accomplished.