We complain way too much. Living in a society with so many luxuries and choices we almost expect perfection. We feel as if everyone should cater to our needs and the world revolves around our specific wants and wishes. We can’t seem to understand that the world is so much bigger than us. We complain about anything new and unexpected because it forces us to adapt and change. Instead of making the proper adjustments and continuing to move forward, we complain about how we hate change and just wish things would stay how they are. If things are not exactly how we want them to be, we feel the need to voice our displeasure and let everyone know that we are unsatisfied.
The issue around complaining is not complex at all. We complain because we feel we are entitled to have everything go just the way we want to. While I do believe that entitlement is a serious problem in our society, it is not the biggest problem and the most prevalent factor in why people complain so much. It’s perspective. So many of us, particularly the fortunate and privileged, seriously lack perspective. We don’t care at all about how others feel or think. We get so caught up in our own world, we forget about everyone else out there. We fail to realize that there are so many other people who have it way worse than we do. The solution to overly complaining is not very difficult to understand and can be easily fixed by understanding and following a few simple concepts. First, take a moment and look at the sky. This may sound silly but it is very important. When it’s night time, walk outside. If the sky is cloudy or you don’t live in an area where stars are easily visible, find a place where they are. If you don’t know a place, just drive as far from the city as you can. You have to do this on a nice clear night when the stars are out and easily visible. All you have to do is walk outside and just look up into the night’s sky. This may be the easiest homework you have ever gotten. Just stare at the sky for a few minutes. I know when you do this you will feel very small and insignificant. Not in a bad way, but you will feel very small. This will help you realize that you are smaller than a tiny little speck from space. You are invisible from outer space’s perspective. How can we complain about unimportant and insignificant things when in reality we are smaller than the smallest speck? This will assure yourself that your problems and complaints are meaningless in the grand scheme of this Earth. Understand that you are the most privileged person because you have the opportunity to live on the greatest planet in the world. You should feel honored that you are one of the small parts that helps this Earth continue to rotate. How can you be so consumed with every minor inconvenience, when you are one of the few living things in the entire universe that has the ability to use your mind and understand logic? Think about this. If you are small and insignificant in comparison to the rest of the World, how small and insignificant are your problems? Complaints and problems mean absolutely nothing when you think like this.
We complain over every little thing. When our waiter/waitress forgets to bring our extra side of mayo, or they give us rye bread instead of white, we throw a fit and go make the waiter or waitress take the order back and make another sandwich. I get it, if you are paying for something you want it to be the way you like it and asked for it to be prepared. It makes total sense to me. The problem is much deeper than just having a forgetful/mindless waiter or waitress. They don’t want to be there, you think making sure your sandwich has no tomatoes is their top priority? Hell no. It’s the total lack of respect and perspective we exude when these things happen. We make them seem like a sworn enemy just because they made a mistake with our order. We say things “oh I’m never coming here again” or “what kinda people do they have working here”. We make such a big deal out of it and we get totally wrapped up in our feelings. People make mistakes and we expect perfection from people and can’t stand it when they don’t meet every single one of our requests. People who act like this lack empathy. They can’t put themselves in the waiter/waitress shoes and think about how they would feel. Being a disrespectful asshole never solved any problems. So why take a simple mistake and turn it into an existential crisis. I believe it is so imperative to spend some time working in the service or retail industry. When we go to a store or a restaurant we act like we are so far superior to the workers and treat them like they are our personalized servants. We treat them with total disrespect when they make a mistake and we expect them to cater to every single one of our needs. It is all about empathy. What if someone did this to you at your job? We should commend these people who work in these industries because it is actually very hard work and we need to thank them because let’s be honest, they are doing the work we don’t want to do. Why treat someone with disrespect just because they cannot pander to every single one of our needs? When this happens we just truly lose sight of perspective. They are working hard to earn a paycheck just like you do, and we need to appreciate their service.
I just want everyone to understand that complaining is never going to improve your situation, it will only make it worse. Complaining is so easy to do because it requires a whole lot less effort to think of something you don’t like or weren’t satisfied with. It takes some effort to actually think about what you liked or enjoyed. Changing our complaining thoughts and words into critiques will help you overcome automatic complaints. Complaints are very different from critiques. Complaints are negative, cynical, and offer no suggestion for improvement. Nobody but yourself want to hear them. A critique is the same thing as constructive criticism. It allows you to take what you weren’t satisfied with or what you didn’t like about a situation or what have you and turn it into something positive. Other people appreciate critiques, not complaints. We can take our complaints that rise from disappointment and dissatisfaction and turn it into something positive. This can be done in almost every area of your life or business, or even someone else’s business. Let’s start with you. If you are wanting to improve your life in some aspect, you will go nowhere if you continue to complain and dwell on the negatives. This is a toxic habit that forms your mindset into becoming very pessimistic and unable to find positivity. Your complaints start internally and reveal themselves externally. If you are always complaining and don’t pay attention to how you react to things, it can also reverse itself and effect you internally as well. You see how complaining gets you nowhere and only brings negative feelings. This is a zero sum game. It is Impossible to win thinking like this and you cannot achieve freedom in the mind. I say you start by eliminating the complaining you do externally. I believe it is easier to change your words before you change your thoughts. Then, the less you say the complaints, the less you will think of them. If you start to have a complaining thought, don’t just try to completely wipe it out of your mind. Take it and focus on the concept of critique. Learn to look at your complaints through a different lens and from different angles. This will teach you to transform your complaints into critiques, and instead of expressing your negative complaints both externally and internally, you can think about how you can improve on that complaint and turn it into something positive. For example, you complain about your boss. You hate him and all you do is think to yourself and talk with your colleagues about how you have the worst boss in the world. Instead, think about ways you can improve your relationship with your boss or just focus on the things that you like about him/her. If there is nothing positive then think about how you react to your boss. If you are so use to complaining and spewing negativity about your boss, it is very likely that you have negative interactions with him/her and the way you react to him lets him know that you don’t like him. A great boss should want all his/her employees to like them and want to be around them. But ultimately a boss is not going to care about what his employees think of him. A boss has way bigger fish to fry and things to do on a daily basis than to worry about why an employee doesn’t like him. He is the boss and you work for him. Don’t ever expect them to right the situation. Take the initiative to improve the way you think and talk about your boss. When you do this amazing things will happen. Your boss will start to notice that you are warming up to him. When he sees this he will feel motivated to reciprocate the improved energy you release around him. You will start to create synergy with your boss and you will both feel motivated to maintain the relationship that was transformed. You will also start to change your outlook and mindset with this type of thinking. You have to focus on trying to take the positive of every situation and stay away from complaining or even thinking about complaining. You will have a much more optimistic outlook and slowly your thoughts will become more positive and then that will translate into more positive and optimistic words that come out of your mouth. This is a process that will take time and won’t even be possible without eliminating complaining.
Next, with business. The concept of learning how to critique rather than complain is vital here. No good manager or business owner would complain when sales are low or business is not doing well. You also can’t complain if your workers are not motivated by you or you have difficulty finding people to work for you. What good does complaining do you? None is the answer. What you need to do is find ways to make your business better so more people will want to buy from you or work for you. Ultimately, that will determine if you are a successful business owner or not. It is very hard to be successful if no one wants to buy from you or work for you. You have to critique your own business as if you were an outsider or someone who was going to conduct an audit on your business. You must detach all feelings and emotions you have with your own business. Look at the whole business and decide what processes are working and what is not working. Look at it from both a managerial and operator’s perspective. Then think about what’s working and what isn’t not working. Then you have to decide how you can make what’s not working, work. This may require you to change processes. Being open minded is key here. You can’t be too stubborn and be unwilling to change a process because you have too much pride or because it’s always how you’ve done something. If that process isn’t working than go back to the drawing board and think of an alternative solution. Complaints will never grow a business, but critiques will. We can also use critiques to improve our own businesses, but others as well. I wouldn’t suggest doing this with your competitor. Do it with all the other businesses you interact with. It could be a supplier, a partner, or just a coffee shop or restaurant located near you or you go to. Help improve other businesses by using critiques rather than complaints. Instead of writing a strongly worded review on Yelp, why don’t you use that platform to share what you think could have gone better. When you take this approach you are more likely to get a response since critiques are framed in a respectful manner that offers constructive criticism instead of complaints and pure negativity. You are actually supporting the business this way. A manager or business owner learns nothing with nasty, mean spirited comments. However, a business owner can receive a lot of value by learning what the customers want and the areas in which they lacked. If a business owner has feedback that is framed as constructive criticism, he/she will be better able to identify with the customer and cater towards the customer’s needs. We are in a capitalistic society where business depends on business. The more critical feedback we provide to our business and other businesses, the better our commerce and economic standing is. Going back to empathy. Just put yourself in their shoes, if you are a business owner, wouldn’t it be nice to know the areas in which you need to improve and how to more effectively engage your customer? Complaining has so many dynamics to it and we don’t realize the negative effects attached to it and how it relates to almost every aspect of our life.
The best way we can eliminate complaining is by gaining perspective. Let’s be honest, you are so lucky to be in the position you are in. No matter how much you may hate it or how unhappy it makes you, there is always someone out there who has it worse. It may sound cliché, but seriously think about all the people around the world who would kill to be in your position. We have unlimited access to not only our basic needs, but our most coveted wants. We can get water, food, shelter, transportation anytime and anywhere we want. We have the access to education, high paying jobs, technology, you name it we got it. We can’t forget that we are extremely lucky and blessed to be where we are. No matter how much the news or social media tries to portray all the negativity going on, this time period is the greatest for being a human. We have so much and there are so many ways to earn a living and pursue our dreams. There are millions of people out there who don’t even have the chance to dream, yet alone live out those dreams, due to the conditions and circumstances they grow up in. We have everything we need and want, yet we still complain and wish we had more. Complaining is so easy to do yet so easy to fix. Gratitude and perspective are complaint killers. Complaints don’t stand a chance when we have the right perspective and we consistently show gratitude. An attitude of gratitude will allow us to eliminate our greedy and selfish ways and focus in on all that we have and all that we are. Realize that through critiques we have the opportunity to change how we think about the cause of our complaints. Why waste time and energy complaining, when you could be using that to free yourself and better your situation? We have the ability to critique our lives, find out what we are missing and what we want to gain. Use those critiques as a roadmap and a guide to find what truly makes us happy and motivated. When we find that combination, there will be no more use for complaints.
Jonathan McClure
The Rolling J
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You can definitely see your skills in the work you write. The world hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to say how they believe. Always go after your heart.
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