Suffering succotash!

Oh, how we humans love to complain. We’ll complain about work, neighbours, food, service, traffic, prices. You name it, we can complain about it. Oh, and the weather! And then we turn it up a notch in winter, don’t you think? And then we turn it up a notch again in summer, well, some of us do. (*raise hand*) We’re practically invested in it.

We know that all this complaining we do takes up a lot of energy and sets us in a negative frame of mind, but do we stop? Nope. Na-uh. No way.

When you think about it, though, complaining really, for the most part, does us no good whatsoever. We have no control over most of the things we complain about  – Mother Nature, the other driver, road construction.  You know I’m not talking about constructive criticism about a defective product or abusive behaviour. It’s the rants bout day-to day things that get us nowhere. I know the venting feels good in the moment. But honestly, it really just causes stress for ourselves, but even more so for the people around us, the impact there can be severe and really destructive. It actually makes us tense and really sets up a negative frame of mind. All, very, not good.

They say, though, if you stop complaining for even just a few days, you notice a difference. So, I thought I’d try it.

I consider myself to be a fairly positive person. Mostly glass half full kinda gal. But, while I was think about this article, I really noticed, man, can I complain, or what? Wow. I was right up there complaining with the best of them. Definitely time to take the challenge. You know what? I didn’t make it past eight o’clock the first morning before I let one rip about the driver in front of me. Yowza! How embarrassing! Try it. It’s tough.

So what can you do about it? It’s pretty simple, really. Not easy, but simple. You have to think and breathe your way through this. You need a little bit of refocusing – think positively, maybe pull out the rose coloured glasses every once in a while. Take responsibility for those thing that are yours to change, fix what you can or can cause to be fixed – leaky faucet, call a plumber; don’t like the office coffee, don’t drink it. Simple, right?

A really big one, try to be less judgemental. Before you open your mouth to speak – internally or externally – think about what you are going to say. Would you rather complain or let it pass. Go for the pass whenever you possibly can. Go for the happy place. You’ll never be sorry.

So, what do you think? Are you willing to take the challenge and not complain about anything  for three days? I’m going to try it again. Let us know how it goes. Share your story in the comments below. We’re listening.