Rethink Complaining

Rethink Complaining

We all know someone who has elevated the process of complaining to an art, sometimes funny, sometimes exhausting. These people have the ability to seek out a problem just about anywhere.

In its more evolved form, complaining is the ability to see what’s not working in one’s own life or in the external world. It can be quite useful if followed to its natural conclusion of finding a solution and applying it. As is the usual case, many don’t get that far, and find that complaining has become an end in itself. In small doses, this is not a big problem. Yet if complaining has become a huge part of our identities, then the time to take a good look at how we are spending our energy has arrived.

Complaining is a way of acknowledging that someone is not happy with the way things are. When we complain or criticize, we are tearing down an undesirable situation in order to make room for something new. But, if all we do is tear down and not bothering to summon the creative energy required to create something new, we are failing the process. In truth, we are at risk of becoming a stagnant and destructive force in our lives and in the lives of those we love. A major issue with complaining is that we tend to focus on other people, whom we can’t change, as a way of deflecting attention from the one person we can change—ourselves. Focusing our complaining on something useful has a twofold process that begins with turning our critical eye to look at what we can actually do something about, and then taking positive action.

When we find ourselves complaining, the last thing we need to do is beat down on ourselves. Instead, we can begin to notice that we are in the mode of wanting to make some changes. Rather than lashing out at someone or some organization, we can look for an appropriate place to channel this energy—not at our neighbor’s house, but possibly parts of our own. Finally, we can ask ourselves the positive question, “What would we like to create in the place of whatever it is we want to tear down?” When we do this, we change a negative process into a creative process, thus using our energy to change ourselves and the world around us in a positive way.