What It's Like to Go Without Complaining for a Month
By Jessica Hullinger
Fastcompany.com
This article was about the idea of intentionally not complaining for 30 days, why it's difficult, and several ways to approach cutting complaints out of your life.
Apparently complaints happen about once a minute in an average conversation, which feels like a very high statistic, but honestly probably is pretty accurate. And it does make sense that it's easier to bond with people through negative experiences, at least from personal experience and an evolutionary standpoint, but you would also think that people would choose more to build connections with people that make them happy.
I thought they did a decent job with the steps that you should take to avoid complaining. I tried to give up complaining for Lent last spring, and definitely struggled the most with their step one, which was "defining what a complaint is." I struggled with deciding whether something was a complaint or just a statement that was objective but negative. Also, if someone asks you how your day was and it was terrible, if you're honest and say that it was terrible does that count as a complaint? Or are you supposed to lie and say it was fine? The answer they gave was to consider how it makes you feel, like "slouching and not breathing."
I do feel like it would be useful to at least track what you do consistently complain about, to see trends or themes or things that maybe bother you more than you would otherwise have thought. I also think adding the "but-positive" spin on things when you want to complain is a good idea too, to help with the perspective shift.
By Jessica Hullinger
Fastcompany.com
This article was about the idea of intentionally not complaining for 30 days, why it's difficult, and several ways to approach cutting complaints out of your life.
Apparently complaints happen about once a minute in an average conversation, which feels like a very high statistic, but honestly probably is pretty accurate. And it does make sense that it's easier to bond with people through negative experiences, at least from personal experience and an evolutionary standpoint, but you would also think that people would choose more to build connections with people that make them happy.
I thought they did a decent job with the steps that you should take to avoid complaining. I tried to give up complaining for Lent last spring, and definitely struggled the most with their step one, which was "defining what a complaint is." I struggled with deciding whether something was a complaint or just a statement that was objective but negative. Also, if someone asks you how your day was and it was terrible, if you're honest and say that it was terrible does that count as a complaint? Or are you supposed to lie and say it was fine? The answer they gave was to consider how it makes you feel, like "slouching and not breathing."
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| "It's cold outside and I hate this place" (Source) |
I do feel like it would be useful to at least track what you do consistently complain about, to see trends or themes or things that maybe bother you more than you would otherwise have thought. I also think adding the "but-positive" spin on things when you want to complain is a good idea too, to help with the perspective shift.
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