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
