This is pretty great - not complaining is a virtue I really admire. I had a friend in college, he was an outdoorsy type, and did forest firefighting in the summers. When we went on long hikes, we'd all be griping towards the end about how cold it was, how tired we were, how we should have not forgotten to bring X Y and Z - except him. He'd just start singing or taking the lead, and then we'd realize that he's actually in the same situation as all of us, and he'd given one of his layers to someone or something. Not annoyingly chipper, but just not complaining and doing what is necessary.<p>What I noticed is that not griping not only drastically improves your mood, it also improves everyone else's mood.<p>There are two kinds of gripes - ones that can actually effect change, and ones that can't. The latter seems to be the useless majority of gripes for me. Especially self-pity complaints seem to be the most egregious.<p>Not complaining doesn't equate to being hard on yourself or being a rah-rah aggressive and stereotypically masculine human being. It's just that if you're in a situation, and you can't change anything, then complaining just makes you feel bad and makes the situation feel worse. It encourages you to put things off, to make them bigger and more difficult than they seem.<p>And if you actually can change the situation you're in, then power to you, but go ahead and do something about it rather than /just/ complaining. Or maybe complain /to/ someone who can and will change things.
True story time! When I was in my early twenties, I went through a bad breakup. I was profoundly unhappy, and, even before the breakup, had a pretty negative opinion of, well, everything. My nickname when I was in high school was The Cynic. I got that nickname from <i>my teachers</i>.<p>The break-up forced me to do a bunch of soul searching. I was talking to a friend at the time, and she told me (in a kind way) that she thought of me as a sarcastic, negative person. I was always looking for something bad to say about the situation.<p>That wasn't ever how I wanted to appear to people, and I resolved to fix it. I didn't know how to change my actual personality, so I came up with a simpler rule: I just wouldn't <i>vocalize</i> negativity. Instead of opening my mouth and saying something bitter or cynical, I'd keep it shut.<p>The next couple of weeks were actually pretty rough. All of my normal conversational habits got broken and I ended up in a lot more awkward silences.<p>Then a funny thing happened. Those awkward moments incentivized me to start coming up with positive things to say. I really wanted to be able to hold normal conversations again, so I needed to build up a stock of good observations to fill those silences with. So, throughout the day, I found myself looking for good observations I could use later.<p>And, lo and behold, once I started looking for the good in the world, I found it damn near everywhere. And once I started realizing how much good there was all around me, I started feeling better. Then I discovered people around me started feeling better too, because now I was someone who brightened their day instead of souring it.<p>Of course, I'm not saying I <i>never</i> complain. Sometimes when you're suffering, the most important thing to do is to let people know. And being more positive is a lot easier for me because I've had a pretty amazingly lucky life so far.<p>But this has had a huge long term impact on my quality of life and to some degree the lives of those around me. And all I really did was stop complaining.
I see a lot of people taking interest in this idea. For a more nuanced and holistic approach to "not worrying about things you cannot change," I would check out Stoicism:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism</a><p>The best intro book, in my opinion, is William B Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy".<p>The main problem I find with simply "Stop Complaining," is how do you do it? What should you and should you not stop complaining about? Do you shut out your feelings about the offending topic, or do you internalize the annoyance and move on? These questions are generally addressed by the Stoics, but I can easily see someone trying to just stop complaining and getting frustrated.
I did something like this once. I can't say as it made any difference, to be honest, and I can't really recommend it. This is what I wrote after the turn was done:<p><i>Finally, some of you may remember that late last year I pledged to disavow online negativity until the end of 2013. I would like to say I was successful in that, but in truth I did slip up on IRC a time or two, for which I apologized to those present. A promise is a promise though, and so I must confess that in the end, the experiment was kind of a failure. What I learned is that real life is not as simple as just trying to 'turn off' the negativity, and that shutting down the valve when the tank is already at pressure is not the best idea. Mostly what I've felt since I realized my self-imposed ban was over was relief. I've learned that expressing negative emotion is as important as expressing positive emotion, it's just a question of how, when, and to whom. So perhaps the real lesson is just learning a bit of self-control and understanding context, and the difference between healthy release and just meanness. Hopefully I know that a little better now. Time will tell.</i>
It is said very well in the Serenity Prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous:<p>God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I'm in!<p>That said, I find it hard to hold on to a negative thought ("don't do X, don't think Y"), so I decided to apply the reverse: I'm going to be happy about the amazing things I have access to in February.<p>I mean, think about it. Running water! Isn't that <i>amazing</i>?<p>And think about wifi on airplanes. In the air! Flying! Chatroulette on air! Even on economy class!
I like this. I try to complain minimally, but I've shared this with some friends and we're going to do it together. I want to take my minimal complaining down to zero. It's just a bad habit that I think has no benefit.<p>I try not to complain because who cares? All it does it make me dwell on whatever is upsetting me, and no one around you wants to hear it, even if they're courteous and listen. If I'm having a bad day, why would I make my friend's day worse by having to listen to me vent about it? Who wants to swipe through Facebook and read about my neighbor's crying baby? Instead I'll put on some headphones and post a link to whichever album I'm listening to in order to cover it up.
Venting is called <i>vent</i>ing for a reason. There is no "secret sauce" to stopping, but there do exist plenty of techniques for stress management that aren't venting. "Simply stop complaining" can even be a more dangerous coping mechanism than unrestrained venting.<p>Edit: Maybe I wasn't very clear - I'm not saying venting is a good idea, I'm fairly sure it's considered maladaptive coping (but don't care to look that up this early in the morning). I'm trying to express that it's still a coping mechanism and "simply stop complaining" is wholly inadequacy advice to someone who doesn't have a strong coping strategy in their life.
As a Canadian, it would be socially unacceptable not to complain about the weather in February. It is a common topic of small talk. Less so in the summer, as the common retort to weather complaints is that "at least it isn't snowing".<p>The example of rain is given, and I wouldn't be complaining about rain. I just got back from London (UK, not Ontario), where locals couldn't seem to understand that I wasn't being polite, that I genuinely enjoyed their weather compared to home. Being able to walk somewhere for 10 minutes without any exposed skin becoming numb in late January was lovely.
With one kvetch (last for this Feb?): "the missed bus, the rainy weekend, the crying baby next door" are small and current annoyances - and I have no trouble not complaining about them. But when it comes to missed life opportunities, wrong life choices (and anything having many-year long profound and irreversible effect on one's life) or about things broken with the world - it's much harder (at least - for me).
The thing is, where do we draw the line in "things we cannot change"? Are we supposed to stop complaining about design decisions of some software? About corrupt politics? The noisy neighbour?
You people are smothering me with your cheeriness and positive thinking. Some of us LIKE to complain about things we can't change. Get a sense of humor.
What, if a company gives me a faulty product and won't repair it or refund it I can't complain to them? If Congress/Parliament does something absurd we can't contact our MPs/Congressmen?<p>It's a nice idea, but I don't think this will fly.