There is a new movement that urges people to completely eliminate complaining from their lives. The idea is that if you see something that you consider wrong, then either (1) work to fix it, or (2) accept it as the way things are. Sitting around complaining produces a disempowered attitude and is toxic to your spirit. In a group situation, it can produce toxic effects on the attitude of the entire group.
I thought this would be easy for me, until I started to consider the implications. The goal is to change your attitude, not just your outward behavior. So that means ending all internal complaining about how people, or the world in general, has treated you unjustly. That is harder. Then it occurred to me that it also means eliminating impatience, because impatience is really internal complaining that the world is just not moving fast enough to suite you. It also means eliminating anger, since anger is just complaining taken to an emotional extreme. This is really challenging, but it gets even worse.
Did you ever beat up on yourself for missing an important meeting or event? Did you ever feel that if you were just a better and more dedicated person you wouldn’t have missed that appointment? In reality, missing an event should not be viewed as a moral failure; it should be viewed as a failure in your scheduling process – something that you can work to correct. This is just an example of a wider issue. For me, one of the hardest parts about eliminating any complaining from my life is to stop complaining and beating myself up for all those times when I did not live up to my expectations. This is a challenging task for anyone, but one with large potential rewards in terms of enhancing your spirit and attitude towards life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
"The goal is to change your attitude, not just your outward behavior. So that means ending all internal complaining about how people, or the world in general, has treated you unjustly. That is harder."
Maybe it would be easier if you *pretended* that there is no such thing as injustice. . .
I think there's a word for that.
It's called *denial*.
That is too funny that you wrote this a couple days ago! I have been complaining about things at work for the last two weeks. I've heard myself complaining and I was starting to annoy myself for complaining so much. I told my office partner that i was going to go a whole week without complaining. That lasted 5 minutes and I found myself starting each sentence with "I'm not complaining, but..." Then we would both laugh as I went right into my complaint. At the end of the week, I was complaining about several coworkers who weren't doing their jobs. And what they weren't doing was affecting my ability to complete a project. (familiar scenario) The solution was to either 1) do their portion of the job myself or 2) Complain to their boss. I chose 2, to complain. Boy, did this change everything! Things were resolved that very day.... so complaining can be very productive. There are times when complaining is ligit. And outcomes are tied to who you take your complaints to.
For semantics, my complaining = (1)doing something to fix it
Goal for this week: to not complain. On your marks, get set....
I think you realized the important distinction between sitting around complaining, and doing something to resolve the problem. The "no complaining" goal is to avoid the former. Going to your boss in an attempt to resolve the situation is considered to be taking a positive action in this context and doesn't count as complaining, regardless of the format of the discussion with your boss.
I'm glad things worked out for you.
Post a Comment