"Get off the complain train!"

Those pearls of wisdom are brought to you by the author of The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to deal with Negativity at Work. Jon Gordon urges you to, instead, get on the energy bus (coincidentally the name of another book he has written).

The No Complaining Rule tells the fictitious story of Hope (oh, how I love metaphorical, virtue names... ) who works at a big company named EZ Tech. Hope's life is about as shitty as it could possibly be: Her husband left her earlier in the year for another woman, her teenage daughter is always aggrieved over something, and she is awaiting some tests to find out if she has breast cancer, which runs in her family. To top it off, poor Hope is faced with a daily barrage of complaints at work, where she is the VP of human resources -- where HER JOB is to deal with employee complaints. But Hope has just had enough. She comes in to work late every day, she's got a crap attitude, and the security guard (whose name she doesn't even know) tells her how she's made his life crap, too, because her smile used to be the best part of his whole day and now he never gets to see it.

Everything comes to a head for Hope when her company is faced with a PR nightmare and she is tasked with coming up with a plan for how to rehabilitate the company culture. Hope finds inspiration from a plucky nurse who tells her to suck it up and stop complaining about everything. (I mean, she is there to get blood work done to potentially confirm that she has life-threatening cancer, but what the fuck? She just needs to get over that shit and stop whining.) Hope takes the new no-complaints message back to the company big wigs, and she is heralded as the genius who will lead the company out of its negativity and poor profits.

Aside from the terrible writing and the oversimplification, the book did have a few good points to make. For example, the book encourages a solution-oriented approach to complaining. Since there will be times when you need to (and should) complain, you should take the opportunity to find a way to change that situation. The approach sees complaining as a symptom of what's wrong with your life; if you're complaining about it, you're not happy about it. So what can you change to make you happy about it?

"If we pay attention to our thoughts, words, and complaints, we will learn a lot about what we don't want and don't like. We can then use what we don't want and don't like as a catalyst to help us determine what we do want and do like."

In a work environment, this principle is used to make employees present solutions for problems that they find within the company.

Generally, I support this idea. While I might complain about things like bad drivers or annoying people I meet without any thought to changing those things, my attitude towards larger problems -- like being unhappy in a work situation or in a friendship, for example -- has always been "What can I do about it?" That hasn't stopped me from complaining about those situations in the process, but I do always keep my thoughts focused on how I can change that situation and make it better.

The book also endorses the "finding the positive" technique, which I think is complete nonsense. This idea encourages you to think of situations not in terms of "have to" but "get to." In other words, I shouldn't think that I "have to" run in order to lose weight, but that I "get to" run because I have legs and I'm healthy. The second aspect of this is to find the "but." In other words, I shouldn't complain when my car breaks down or I get a flat tire, but I should think about how lucky I am to have a car. Or when I'm annoyed that I'm waiting in traffic for an hour, I should focus on the fact that I'm lucky to have a job to drive to in the traffic.

Sure, these are petty scenarios, and I shouldn't become consumed by complaining about them. But taking the "it could be worse" point of view is meaningless to me. It could ALWAYS be worse. Discomfort, inconvenience, and pain are all relative. It's better to find ways to attribute value to things in your life based on your own standards and circumstances. No, I don't feel lucky just to have a job to drive to in traffic, but I do try to keep the situation in perspective by noting that there's nothing I can do about how fast or slow cars or moving, and that no matter how annoyed I get, I won't move any faster. And then I try to focus on things like listening to good music or thinking about my day or watching the people around me.

The book also offers suggestions for things to do instead of complain. I was surprised to see that I already do many of them.

1. Let go of things that are beyond your control (see, my approach to traffic jams is part of the literature).

2. Meditate to reduce stress and to boost positive energy. (Tried that.)

3. Instead of complaining about other people, find the positive in them and praise their good qualities. NOT my strong suit. Other people are the biggest source of my complaints.

4. Focus on your successes and accomplishments to generate a lot of positive thinking about your daily life. Meh.

5. Practice gratitude. This suggestion actually includes noting THREE THINGS that you are grateful for or happy about each day. What do you know? I am a fucking happiness GENIUS!

What are your suggestions for "getting off the complain train?"

1. Chris got a part-time job. We are on our way to riches!

2. I went to see the fertility doctor again today, and I am starting a new course of medicine. The doctor presented the plan, and Chris said, "Question: Will it make our babies superheroes?" The doctor dead panned back: "Yes. If you're the parents."

3. We are going to Boston next week!