On the necessity of NOT complaining (most of the time)

It is natural for us as human beings to want things to go the way we want them to go. It is equally natural, although unfortunate, for us to expect things to go our way. Most unfortunate of all, it is equally natural for us to react in a way that is destructive of our future hopes.

Those who succeed more than they fail in life somehow manage not to succumb to frustration and despair in dealing with life's constant disappointments. They find a way to RESPOND in a way that gets them what they want more often than not, or at least often enough so that they keep going, and going, and going...

I submit the secret is that they don't waste a lot of energy complaining.

Let's break this down. We get up in the morning with hopes and plans of how our day is going to go, but usually all it takes is an encounter with other humans and the systems that they have built to encounter the serious challenges they pose what we want for the day.

There. Did you see them? Those flashes -- bigger in some than others -- of energy pushing back on the challenges?

It's internal to our souls, so you couldn't see it ... but you do see how it usually manifests itself. It is the mainstay of our political commentary in the United States. It is the constant streaming reality on social media platforms I won't mention here. It is around us in the faces, tones, bodies, and discourse of most of the people we meet, and so often we contribute to it. It is COMPLAINT, our expression of how we feel a particular outcome wronged us. That is how that flash of energy is generally used, nowadays.

Complaint does have a purpose. It allows us to express our emotional pain, which is real, and relieves us of the pressure of holding it in. If we have the ear of someone in sympathy with us, we receive comfort. If we have the ear of someone who is in sympathy AND has more power in the situation, then they may also do for us what we want done, or help us do it.

But read the last sentence of the previous paragraph again. When we complain, that is how we have chosen to invest our power, our energy, into the situation. Someone else may be able to help us, but only if they take their power, their energy, and invest it into effective action. This is why people who major on complaining change how they and others feel about situations, but often cannot change them for the better.

Here are some ideas to consider.

1. If you do complain to others, search for those not only willing to listen but also able to help. It is so easy for us to only talk with people who can validate our viewpoints and our feelings, but this kind of complaining does not actually direct any energy to overcoming the challenge at hand.

2. Be specific about what happened to cause your complaint, and what you may have contributed to the situation. Again, it is easy for us to just give those details that favor us and how we feel about the situation to those we cultivate just for their sympathy. Yet if there are people willing to help us, they need the whole truth in order to take the best action.

3. As you get specific about what happened, you may discover other ways to use your energy without complaining at all.

That flash of energy we get when contradicted and challenged can be used to find creative solutions to challenges. Some of those solutions that may involve "win-win" situations so those contradicting and challenging us are happy to let us get what we want because they get what they want too. Some of those solutions may be so innovative that they solve problems for whole groups of people facing similar challenges.

That same energy can be used to discover ways that already exist around challenges. Sometimes a better understanding of a person, or a system, might yield better ways to work together, or clarify the need to remove or remove one's self from a person or system as much as possible.

People who take effective action when challenged are masters of taking that flash of internal energy and getting the people, ideas, and resources together to actually CHANGE the situation. They usually have good understanding of the people and systems they work with, and if you track them long enough, they also have a habit of separating themselves from people and systems that they find unworkable. They don't stay around to complain for long; they use their people, ideas, and resources to get into better situations.

People who take effective action also have one more skill: when they can't escape, they still endure by changing the things that they can. These are the unsung heroes of history, who lived through years, decades, and generations of bad situations, but did what they could to both help those around them survive and make it to a future that would be better.

And then there is the God factor -- what do you do when no human is willing to listen or has power to help? People of faith are different from those who pack whatever chosen place of worship there is: you will notice that across all religions, the most faithful people pray or meditate more, and complain to others less.

I am a devout Christian. I also attend church, but that is two separate things, because church people can complain with the best of them. The latter phenomenon is tragic, because the more time church people spend complaining, the more we have to wonder: do they really believe in a God that has ALL POWER, ALL KNOWLEDGE, and is EVERYWHERE, and in addition is full of love and grace? Faith and constant complaining do not mix!

When I am tempted to start complaining about situations to other people, I have to ask myself: have I prayed first and asked for the Lord to help me, to help me understand the situation, my part in it, and who else and where else I should go to for help?

Which brings us to the final point: sometimes we can't get what we want because we aren't supposed to have it. This is why cultivating real faith and real friends is key ... a lot of times, what we want comes from fear, greed, envy, and if we were allowed to have our way, we would mess ourselves up and everyone around us. Sometimes that challenge and contradiction is a mercy, to stop us and make us think. And this is where the habit of complaining can be most deadly, as it encourages us to focus on what we want and what we deserve and how we feel about not getting it instead of seeing where we are dead wrong.

The above is also why complaining, especially in places where we can tell the story the way we want and be validated for our opinion, is the easiest thing to do. It suits our desire to get our own way EASILY, for we get the emotional release, the validation, and the chance to pull down the people and things we are complaining about in someone else's eyes. Temporarily sweet revenge.

Temporarily. For while we take the easy way out by indulging in complaining, we miss the opportunity to use that energy to assess the situation rationally, and to make effective action toward either finding a solution toward our objective or finding a more righteous objective. We miss the opportunity to avoid descending into the cycle of constant disappointment, frustration, bitterness, and despair that is sucking the life out of people, families, organizations, and nations all around us.

This is why not complaining -- or at least, doing it less frequently and to the right people -- is a necessity.

Graphic Credit: Deeann D. Mathews, the author