My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

I'm not sure when it happened. And I don't like that it has. But the inescapable truth is that somewhere along the way over the last three years, I have become someone who cares considers has become aware of what other people think of me. And I have become aware of it enough to start to understand that perception. The result has been a creeping sense of self doubt and a tendency to compare my life to those around me.

I am 32 years old. I have been married for (nearly) 7 years. I don't have any children. I still rent an apartment. I don't have any savings. I have some professional experience, but I work in an entry-level position. My life has been full of accomplishments, but none of them translate to awards or pay increases, and I'd have to tell you long, heady, draining stories to understand them.

I haven't thought much of any of that beyond wondering how to make it to the next step, or wondering what I want the next step to be, or -- frankly -- figuring out how I can become independently wealthy so I can say "fuck you" to the whole system and live on a beach in France. And I have thought even less of what other people think of my tendency to sit silently in the crowd, or to ask blunt questions, or to say "fuck" as often as pops into my head to do so.

Yet, there has been this creeping awareness that gives me insight into how others perceive these things about me. And I start to wonder about where I "should" be at this point in my life, and how I "should" try to relate to people to build valuable relationships, and how I "should" be spending my money and my time. Whether I gauge the answers to those questions by the scale of someone else's opinion or my own, the fact that I even consider them enrages me. It's this kind of thinking that fuels my discontent -- and my constant complaints.

Of course, I do sometimes measure my life against another because I am missing something I really do want. My husband and I spent the afternoon at the birthday party of a friend's 1-year-old. The place was full of babies and toddlers. We were one of only two childless couples there. After just a few minutes, I started to feel like the bitter single woman who got dumped on Valentine's Day and wants to tell anyone who will listen what a sham love is and how monogamy's not possible.

I knew what I was in for when we went. I know how hard it is for me to be around couples with children -- especially babies. But no matter how ready I am, and how much I try to put on a happy face, it never fails to produce the same reaction. The tears started falling almost as soon as we got in the car.

It didn't help that we spent the previous afternoon with my husband's brother and his wife -- who's expecting to have a baby in about three months. (We both got pregnant around the same time.) And it doesn't help that every time I talk to a friend I haven't seen in a while, I get news that she's pregnant. Or that every time I log onto Facebook, someone else I know is pregnant, or celebrating the birth of her child, or -- DAMN IT -- pregnant AGAIN.

I don't begrudge these women their happiness. They deserve it. But it's hard to feel that happiness for them when I look at their lives and see reflected everything that I am trying to accomplish. Something that is so simple that people do it by accident. Something that is a natural part of nearly every woman's life. And despite everything else I know about myself, and all that is wonderful and unique about my life, I feel like a failure because of it.

I know, I know: It will all work out. I should stay positive and optimistic. There are many ways to make a family.

In the mean time, I'm going to be as upset as I'd like to be over life's bitter disappointments, and I'm going to get back to who I am and stop trying to dress it up in pretty social niceties that make it more palatable for other people.

Just do it.

I was driving home from the gym tonight, and the John Tesh show came on the radio. "Intelligence for Your Life," you know. The schtick of this show is that Tesh presents short tidbits about various subjects in the vein of "Did you know....?" The segment I heard tonight was about negative thinking and stress. He actually said the following: "People who are cynical feel more stress. They're more suspicious, and they're mistrustful of others." He noted that negative thinking creates stress, which leads to higher blood pressure and depression. He also noted that negative people have fewer friends, which also leads to depression. The bit was followed -- appropriately -- by "Walking on Sunshine."

I was in the car by myself, and I laughed long and hard as I listened. "Yes! Yes, that's it! Just think positively! Just do it! Unless you want to die early a miserable and friendless reject, then you better get your mind right, and you better do it now."

Well, that was enough for me. Today is a whole new day. I will never be distrustful of another person. I will cast out all doubts and wield a mental machete against any creeping sarcasm, cynicism, or passivity.

I'm a driver; I'm a winner. Things are gonna change, I can feel it.




1. I love singing*, and I do it often. I sang the shit out of "Walking on Sunshine."

2. The word "busking." I'm a huge word nerd, and some words just tickle the shit out of me. That's one of them.

3. I've lost four pounds. Supermodelsuperstardom here I come!!

*Endorsement of singing does not imply quality of said singing.

Making progress.

Just before I began this entry, I sat at my computer and calmly turned to my husband and burst out with "Somebody call 9-1-1."

He looked right at me, half-smiled, and said "Why?" and gave me that "Bring it on" look.

Without hesitation, I stared back at him and let out," Shawty fire burning on the dance floor. Whoa-oh-oh!" I then stood up and danced my way out of the room. Who did he think he was challenging?

The last couple of days have been complaint-free! And I can attribute that to more scenes like the one I just described.

My husband is the only person with whom I can unequivocally be myself. I have best friends that are like family, but even around them, there are times that I feel like I have to "perform" in some way, or meet expectations. Or have to be careful about what I expose, knowing the reactions that will be provoked. It's not as if Chris never puts pressure on me to behave in a certain way, or that he accepts everything I do or never has criticism. But I can be brutally honest with him. And there is great comfort in being able to say exactly what I'm thinking all the time. I can be as goofy as I want to be, as sullen as I want to be, as sappy as I want to be.

Of course, my husband can also be a primary source of my complaints. It's those relationships that can produce and tolerate the full spectrum of emotion that are made to last. Otherwise, you're never scratching the surface.

Spending the last two days exclusively in the company of my husband has had a calming effect. There is no need to meet social expectation. No need to disguise my emotion. No need to pretend to be interested when I'm not. No need to pretend to be excited when I'm not. I can just be and feel exactly as I am at the moment.

Of course, I live in the world. If I'm going to manage to quiet the complaints, I'm going to have to find ways to calm myself amid the storm of hypocrisy and illusion that social interaction creates. I've already spent time limiting interaction with those that bring little benefit to my life. (And I've unintentionally limited interaction with those that do...) And I work to remind myself when people frustrate and annoy me that they have a limited role in my life, and that their actions have little effect on what I do outside of the moment. It has helped. Though I have had to take a few "time outs" and say, "OK, I have to complain to you about this, otherwise I'm going to [have to cuss this person -or- reply to this person's e-mail and get myself fired -or- ____________]. Once I've acknowledged that I'm complaining, and I've gotten it out once, I usually let it go. In the past, I likely would have rehashed the scenario over and over with several friends and innocent bystanders who only wanted to hear "fine" in response to "How are you?"

Baby steps.




1. I really ran for the first time in months today. I mean that I didn't just run, but that I went in with a plan and ran hard for a long (er, longer) time. It was more difficult than it should be, but I felt better than I have in awhile about exercise.

2. I finished a lot of writing projects this week. For pay. I was really productive this week, and it didn't feel like a monumental effort to complete the work.

3. I slept for about 12 hours yesterday.

New strategy

It seems that I have adopted the policy "If you can't say anything nice..." My week has been less cluttered by complaints, but I'm not sure if it's because my new complaint-free ideology has started to sink in or because I've just been unusually quiet the last week or so. Stress has been high (remember that whole can't-have-a-baby-and-now-we're-broke predicament I described?), and my usual strategy for that is to hunker down and work my way through it. As a result, I've been more focused on the big picture and have been less bothered by the day-to-day trivialities that usually occupy my complaints.

Though I have been complaining less, I can't say that my attitude has improved much. But I guess that's like a smoker saying that, gee, these past two weeks of running haven't done much to improve my fitness. I know it will take some time, and I know that simply eliminating complaints won't be enough. But it will be a start.

It has been suggested that I should do more than focus on reducing negativity. That instead of making myself an empty vessel and waiting for the flood of optimism and good humor to fill me (because it's just been waiting to get in), that I should find ways to fill myself with more positive thoughts.

Looking for the positive has been an exercise in futility in the past. Friends have tried this tactic many times, and I slam down every "what about...?" with a crushing dose of unfiltered reality. For me, looking for the positive in most situations has been akin to saying, "This homelessness is not so bad. I mean, you've only been robbed twice this week -- that's an all-time low -- and you were first in line at the soup kitchen last night." Not much consolation.

But I guess it's all in the spirit of the blog. Maybe focusing on the positive enough will drown out the negative. Or maybe it's just working two sides of the same problem (diet and exercise). I will become the Stuart Smalley of my life.

In that spirit, I will start listing three things each day that make me happy. It could be something about my life or myself, or it could just be something that I like and that makes me laugh.

1. My cat and I had a most productive cuddle session.




2. I found out that I have a free pass to a swanky (expensive) fundraising dinner because I'm on the board.


3. I discovered this song (which was most apropos):

What's In a Complaint?

My first week of attempting a complaint-free life has been about as successful as LiLo's attempts at sobriety:



I'm like the drunk who doesn't get it -- "No, it's cool; I'm just drinking beer tonight." I'm not even aware that I'm complaining until I start to think about this blog and realize that I've spent the last hour cursing motorists, elbowing my way through Whole Foods and grumbling down the aisles, and lamenting over my to-do list for the coming week. Sometimes I catch myself after I've let out a "FUCK! What the hell are you DOING? Get out of the fucking way!" while I'm throwing up my arms at the driver lingering at the right-turn red. Then I think "Wait, was that a complaint?"

While we were in the grocery store today, a family was passing us in the aisle. We couldn't move any farther to the right, and the family moved all the way to the left -- except for one little boy. He walked straight up to our cart and stood in front of it and stared at my husband. He only moved when his mother said something to him, then he muttered something like "MAN, that guy wouldn't get out of my WAY!" The mother said nothing. I looked at the woman and just said, "Wow." Considering what was running through my mind at the time, I consider that progress.

Then I wondered: Are my thoughts in play also? Should I try to be limiting the complaints that are scrolling through my head like a 24-hours news ticker, or is it enough to concentrate on limiting their expression?

Later, at the checkout, we overheard some cashiers complaining about how busy the store was because -- apparently, to them -- there was a rush because snow was forecast for tonight. (We live in the South. We treat forecasts of snow like prophecy of the Armageddon.) One cashier threw down a slat of groceries in mock excitement and yelled, "It's all going to melt!" I don't get the sarcasm, but I got her intent. My husband said, "Wow, that was really rude." I said back, "What does she want? If people don't shop here, she won't get a fucking paycheck." I hate hipster douche bags.

But then I wondered if that's a kind of justified complaint? A criticism in response to someone's shitty attitude. Is criticism complaint?

Griping about my daily run-ins has become such an automatic process that I don't even realize I'm doing it. And it's hard for me to distinguish petty complaining from other negative speech, like criticism or cries of frustration (i.e. "Fuck!") What's justified?

Luckily, I took some vacation time and have spent the last week at home. It's hard to find much to complain about when all I do is sit in front of the computer or watch movies. It's when I have to actually get changed out of my pajamas that the trouble starts. And I have to start wearing pants that button again starting tomorrow. Trouble lies ahead.

I would be happy to spend my days zipper-free. It's when I have to be accountable to people -- or really to interact with them in any way -- that I start to get frustrated. Perhaps my only options are to become a hermetic writer or one of those cheesy search-engine-optimizing-passive-income-touting-millionaire-by-30-motivational-speaking entrepreneurs. (I guess I already missed the boat on one part of that profile...) I don't mind selling out if it means I don't have to play nice with others.

Since I'm probably not going to make millions from this blog or the lottery, it looks like I'm going to have to find a way to live amongst the people and manage my frustrations.

Smilers Never Lose, and Frowners Never Win

I'm a frowner. A grump. A complainer.



I'm not a bright-sider. No one is going to accuse me of being a Pollyanna. When I was in high school, the manager at the maternity store where I worked once told me, "You're just like Eeyore." Then hunched over and in a mopey voice said, "I guess it's my birthday." I was truly confused. It wasn't my birthday. And did she think I was acting sad?

It was the first time someone had told me that I complain too much. But it didn't hit me like some great epiphany. It wasn't the moment that I turned it all around and decided to seize life and become a better person. I was 16, after all.

I wish I could say that things have changed since then, but they haven't. I've only come to love my curmudgeonly demeanor, and complaining is like a competitive sport. It's a way to commiserate. To vent frustration. To lampoon the idiots I seem to encounter everywhere I go.

Take for example:

The J.Lo wannabe in the pink velour tracksuit who jumped on the treadmill next to me talking on her cell phone. Her cell phone! What is so fucking important that she couldn't interrupt her hard, hard workout walking it out at a 3.0? Unfortunately, I didn't have to wonder since she had to talk over the sound of all those annoying people working out to be heard. By everyone. Including me -- over my headphones and my Lady Gaga. I reached the point where I either had to abandon my for-real adrenaline-pumping workout or to jump off the treadmill and scream "Get off the fucking phone you fucking idiot!" I chose to leave. Probably better.

Or the person who keeps calling me repeatedly from an unknown number. Newsflash people of 2011: Cell phones all have caller ID. I can see that you've called me five times in the last hour. And continue to do so every few hours every couple of days. I finally answered the phone with a huffy "Hell-O????" and the person hung up. Clearly, the voice message that picks up every time the phone goes unanswered and that identifies my phone number and my full name was not enough to tip this person off that it was the wrong number.

Or the lady who ran after me as I pulled my cart into the checkout lane and repeatedly cried out "Excuse me. Excuse me!" with more and more annoyance. She caught up to me and said, "He was helping me. I'm coming back. Excuse me. Excuse me!" I had not moved ahead to the register. I was still standing at the back of the line, and she had enough space to get by my cart. I finally started backing up, and said, "I'm trying to get out of your way" and then ran over her foot with my cart. I'm usually the asshole.

It's not always people. Sometimes it's the stupidity of everyday living. Like when I asked the woman at the Whole Foods pizza bar if I could order a cheese pizza on whole-wheat crust and she told me that she just used the last whole-wheat dough to make the pizza that was on the counter. A pizza that she had just put out. A pizza that was completely whole and had not been served. "Oh, OK, well I'll just take that pizza then." Oh sure, she can pack that up for me but she'll just have to charge me by the slice. I mean, what can be done? The pizza's been cut. Her hands are tied!

Or the fact that there are no parking spaces at the Wal-Mart on New Year's Day. Like, at all. Not even if I want to walk a mile to the store from the back of the parking lot. None. What is so fucking special about Wal-Mart on New Year's Day?? Don't you people have resolutions to make and better lives to lead or something equally cliche? Maybe it was a rush on power bars.

Or all the status updates on Facebook that talk about how amazing their New Year is going to be or how awesome their fucking life is in general. We all get it. You are great. We all wish we could be like you.

Or people who respond with "we" when you ask about "you." Or hipsters. Or Katy Perry.

I could go on and on and on. But this is my problem, I've come to realize. Or at least part of it.

I've allowed myself to focus too much on negativity, and it has contributed to an overall shitty outlook on life. Petty complaints are not the cause of my shitty outlook, but they help me justify it. To be more technical than "shitty," research has shown that there is an established connection between the shape you allow your thoughts to take and the outlook you have. It's like training for the mind. If you allow yourself to focus on the negative, you have a hard time seeing much else. Focusing on the negative makes you feel more negative, and it makes the people around you feel more negative.

A few years ago, I saw a therapist who suggested that I try to "think more positively." That was her big recommendation. I had been seeing her for over a year for depression and some other issues, and I had decided that the therapy wasn't working for me and that I wasn't going to see her anymore. And that was her closing thought: Think more positively. I wanted to laugh in her face. Her advice was tantamount to "Forget about that crushing sense of emptiness; look at a cute kitten." But the more time has passed, and the more I've realized the effect of my own thought patterns, the more I think that her suggestion wasn't completely ridiculous.

Years of grousing and turning over my lamentations in the form of wry commentary and sardonic observation haven't done much to improve my mood. And the running rant that's in my head only reminds me of all the things in life that make me unhappy. With that realization, I decided to make a change. I issued myself a challenge: To stop complaining. For a whole year. Change is about small steps. I don't plan to turn myself into a rainbow-loving, mantra-spouting, hand-holding yogi. But I would like to unburden myself a bit and feel more bright-eyed and hopeful.

According to some experts, the benefits may be more than mental. The Mayo Clinic says that positive thinking can contribute to:

* Increased life span
* Lower rates of depression
* Lower levels of distress
* Greater resistance to the common cold
* Better psychological and physical well-being
* Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
* Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

It turns out that I'm not alone in targeting complaining as a source of negativity:
A Kansas pastor issued his church a 21-day "no complaints" challenge, which also included a ban on criticizing, gossiping, and using sarcasm. The challenge was issued with handy purple bracelets as a visual reminder: If you complain, you change the bracelet to the other wrist, and you start the 21 days all over. You know how I love a colored-bracelet campaign.

Like I said: I'm not attempting a total thought overhaul. I'll just focus on the complaints for now. And how do I distinguish a genuine complaint from other forms of so-called "negative" speech? (As I do not consider sarcasm or profanity, among others, to be unqualified negatives...)

I define the complaining that I'm targeting as the pettiness and trivialities that have no real consequence in my life. That person at Wal-Mart took up two minutes of my day, and I will never see her again. The person who keeps calling me on my phone is disturbing nothing more than my call record. These minor annoyances should not form the substance of my conversation or become the focus of my thoughts.

But it's not all Katy Perry and annoying gym girls. There is occasion for real complaint.

The past few years seem to have given me more than my share of reasons. My husband is unemployed for the third time in the last two years. His last day of work was Christmas Eve. We spent our Christmas at home alone -- without a tree, without any gifts, and without the traditional feast. I spent the day working on freelance projects, and he spent the day looking for work. But even worse than any of that was having to face the question the following week: "How was your Christmas?" Every lie made me wince with the knowledge of how our holidays really were/are. And every time I let out even a fraction of the truth, I was met with uncomfortable silence or awkward platitudes. Apparently, I'm meant to make myself feel worse to make others feel good.

Christmas also marked our 18th month of trying to have a baby. I have been prescribed different fertility treatments for the last 9 months, and I have worked diligently to reduce stress and to improve my diet and my overall health.I've tried a raw diet, a vegan diet, a low-carb diet, a high-carb diet, a high-protein diet. I've anguished over whether to eat broccoli or chickpeas (for their influence on hormones). I've tried meditation. I've tried acupuncture. I've stopped drinking, I've started running, and I've taken a pharmacy of supplements. And I've slept more than I ever have. In October, we were ecstatic when we found out I was finally pregnant. A week later, I had a miscarriage.

It has been hard to muster a positive attitude. It's hard to try to find the point.

When I consider what I want in my life -- to find happiness, to feel connection, to live with passion, to create a loving family -- that's when I find the point. I can't create lasting happiness if I let myself become too focused on petty annoyances. And I can't reduce the stress in my life if I allow myself to get worked up over people that I don't know or who aren't close to me.

Maybe this experiment will do little more than clear the mental clutter in one small corner. Maybe it won't be enough to make an impact, or maybe it's only addressing the enamel and not the stone.

No matter the outcome, I feel it's a step worth taking, and I feel hopeful. I don't expect to make it 365 days complaint-free. If the attempt turns out anything like my attempt to give up sugar, I'll be feasting on expletives and caricature in about two weeks. But I hope that by the end of the year, my number of complaint-free days outnumbers those clouded by grievances, and that I'll have developed a more positive attitude.

It won't be easy. I just heard that Diddy is now calling himself Diddy Dirty Money... Be strong. Be strong.




"People who do not see their choices do not believe they have choices. They tend to respond automatically, blindly influenced by their circumstances and conditioning. Mindfulness, by helping us notice our impulses before we act, gives us the opportunity to decide whether to act and how to act." -- The Issue at Hand, Gil Fronsdal